The number of Americans struggling to put food on the table remains at record levels, according to new government data.
The USDA reports about one out of every six Americans had trouble coming up with enough money to buy food at some point last year. And childhood hunger is a major problem— nearly one in five children lives in households that struggle to provide food.
That's nearly 49 million people—14.5 percent of the population—a figure virtually unchanged from the previous year. The numbers from the past three years are the highest on record since the USDA first began publishing food insecurity data in 1995.
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The figures are even worse within multicultural communities. According to USDA figures, more than 25 percent of African-American households and 26 percent of Hispanic households suffered from food insecurity in 2010, compared to 10.8 percent of white non-Hispanic households.
"Despite major gains made for hungry and poor people in 2010, millions of households are still struggling to put food on the table," says David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. "As members of Congress work to reduce the federal deficit, they must ensure that programs designed to help families make ends meet remain funded."
More than 45 million Americans—one in five—currently receive SNAP benefits (or food stamps). USDA reports 59 percent of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest nutrition assistance programs. Participation in these programs has increased even more in recent years due to high rates of unemployment.
Still, there's a small bright spot within the figures: "very low food security" or "food security with hunger" declined from 5.7 percent in 2009 to 5.4 percent in 2010, due in part to these federally-funded safety-net programs. Still, those programs currently are on the chopping block as Congress resumes deficit-reduction talks; the next phase of the battle to balance the budget and reduce the deficit now falls on the Super Committee—which must identify $1.5 trillion in federal deficit reductions.
"The fact that the overall figures remain unchanged but SNAP participation is at an all-time high speaks to the necessity of safety-net programs," Beckmann argues.
The USDA survey was conducted last December in 45,000 phone interviews. USDA researchers say the report understates the problem of hunger because it does not include the homeless.
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