The USDA announced on Monday that 49.1 million Americans, “lived in food-insecure households.” This is an enormous jump from the 36.2 million people it reported in 2007, and is by far the highest level of food insecurity reported since it started being measured in 1995. The report also told us that from 2006-2008, 12.4% or about 1 in 8 households in DC alone had difficulty getting enough food on the table. (See here for our post about what “food insecurity” looks like.)
It was news in 2007 when we saw an increase from 2006 of under 1 million hungry people in the United States—so a report that says 13 million more were hungry in 2008 is just plain scary. And because the number is averaged over the last 3 years, we can assume that the economic impact of the recession is not fully realized in those figures.
So here’s what we can add to the picture: demand for emergency food is up at least 30% in our region. Phone calls to the Capital Area Food Bank’s Hunger Lifeline, an emergency food referral service, were up by 91% in June of this year, and in the last few weeks the number of calls has skyrocketed — our operator is on the phone for a full 8 hours each day these days. (We even have others helping out to field her calls.) Emergency food providers and government assistance workers alike can attest to the experience of serving more and more middle class families through their programs.
It’s also important to remember that this kind of hunger has physical, social, mental, and spiritual implications well beyond the physical sensation most of us get at lunch time.
President Obama has pledged to end childhood hunger in the United States by the year 2015. With these new numbers, it’s clear we have a very daunting task ahead of us, and we’ll need everyone’s help to get there.
Another important point: it’s women and children who are really hit hardest by hunger:
http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/women_and_children_most_hit_by_hunger