17 Million Americans Suffering From “Very Low Food Security”: Study
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Nearly 17 million Americans, or 5.5 percent of the population, have to skip meals or not eat for a day due to a lack of money to buy food, said a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday, with a record 46.7 million Americans now enrolled for food stamps in the country.
Nearly 17 million Americans, or 5.5 percent of the population, have to skip meals or not eat for a day due to a lack of money to buy food, said a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday, with a record 46.7 million Americans now enrolled for food stamps in the country.
The Department of Agriculture said that high unemployment and slow economic growth since the 2008-2009 recession had driven more Americans to turn to food stamps in the last year, while rising global food prices also meant that the poor were suffering from “very low food security” as a result.
[quote]”Too many middle-class families who have fallen on hard times are still struggling,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Our goal now is to get these families the temporary assistance they need so they are able to get through these tough times and back on their feet as soon as possible.”[/quote]Related: World Teetering on Brink of Global Food Crisis
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Related: World Bank Promises Action To Counter Rising Food Prices
The Department of Agriculture spent $75.7 billion in the last fiscal year issuing food stamps to enrolees. According to official government figures, this sum is more than double what it was nearly four years ago, before the financial crisis.
Furthermore, Reuters noted that the number of people suffering from poor food security had risen by 800,000 over the last year. In contrast, 173,000 more Americans enrolled for food stamps from May to June this year.
“This is worrisome, because the expectation is that in the coming year, food prices are likely to go up quite a bit, owing to the drought in the Midwest and in much of the country, and so this is likely to be an ongoing challenge,” said James Ziliak, head of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky, to NPR.
Tom Nelson, president of Share Our Strength, a nonprofit working to end childhood hunger, added that proposed budget cuts to the food stamps program may increase the burdens of the poor, particularly those with young children in their household.
“The fact that we’ve got 16.6 million kids in households where the kids are at risk of not having the food and nutrition they need, that’s not what should be going on this country.”
[quote]”About 57 percent of the families that are food insecure report receiving assistance from one of the federal food programs. So what it tells us, if those programs are threatened or are lessened, it’s going to put even more people into a food insecure situation,” he noted.[/quote]Related: US Poverty Hits Record High: 1 in 6 Americans Living Below Poverty Line
Related: More Than 1 in 5 US Children Living In Poverty
Related: Rich Nations, Poor People: The Cause For Rising Poverty In The Western World
According to Reuters, Food-security issues were greatest in the South, in inner cities across the nation, in families with a single parent, in Black and Hispanic households and in households with children.
The overall food-insecurity rate for individuals was 16.4 percent, while Mississippi and Arkansas were the states with the highest rate at 19.2 percent.
