Over 35 million Americans faced hunger in 2006: USDA

[Richard Cribb]

MOTTO: "Somehow we find it hard to sell our values, namely that the rich should plunder the poor." - John Foster Dulles

Inspired by Kosez' thread on hunger in New York:

By Christopher Doering

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government said the number of Americans who went hungry in 2006 was held in check at 35 million people from the prior year, but food advocacy groups said on Wednesday more needs to be done.

The U.S. Agriculture Department said a total of 12.65 million households were "food insecure," or 10.9 percent of U.S. homes, up from 12.59 million a year ago.

The USDA defines food insecurity - its metric for measuring hunger - as having difficulty acquiring enough food for the household throughout the year.

"It looks very stable from this year to last year," said Mark Nord, who co-authored the annual report for USDA's Economic Research Service.

Overall, 35.52 million people, including 12.63 million children, went hungry compared with 35.13 million in 2005. The survey was conducted in December 2006 and represented 294 million people, an increase of 2.5 million from 2005.

Food advocacy groups said the figures showed the United States was not doing enough to combat hunger, and feared conditions could worsen.

"As costs for food, energy, and housing continue to rise and wages stagnate or decline, households are finding themselves increasingly strapped," said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center. "This may mean even worse numbers in 2007."

Very low food security was most prevalent in households with children headed by a single woman -- 10.3 percent in 2006, USDA said.

Food stamps and other public nutrition programs account for about 60 percent of the USDA's spending. Funding for the department's 15 nutrition assistance programs has risen 70 percent since 2001 to $59 billion in 2006, and 20 percent of all Americans are impacted by the programs each year.

Some 27 million people are enrolled in the food stamp program alone, which helps poor Americans buy food. USDA has estimated 65 percent of eligible people participate in the program, up from 54 percent in 2001.

"We have more work to do," said Kate Houston, USDA's deputy undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services. "We can't say that everybody that is eligible for our programs is participating."

Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1432658720071114?sp=true

When I read such things I need a drink - a strong one.

As far as I am concerned, this is but one indication on a failed society. After all, the United States of America is by far the richest, and for a while also the most powerful country in the world, and one that is grabbing a disproportionally huge part of the world's ressources. In such a society, hunger should not be an issue at all.
Of course there are reasons for it. To put it simple, one might say that realcapitalism doesn't work. For at the same time as the people mentioned struggle, a very little elite live in almost unfathomable luxury. And the system seem to be most beneficial to them. As some wise man put it; it is a society with socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor...
We could also say that what we are dealing with is a rich country with a third world structure. Just consider this; a tiny superwealthy upperclass, bad infrastructure and an unimpressive public sector (it can't "afford" universal healthcare for instance), and a bloated military. When one starts to consider the societal costs of this, it is time for another drink...
I must also point out the houserules for those who want to debate this. So do everybody a favour and read this carefully.
The following is not wanted:
- Corporate slogans or "studies" from Heritage Foundation or Cato Institute.
- Cheap moralizing from those who live comfortably in their middle class ivory tower about the bad characters and laziness of the poor. You see, in my part of the world the Victorian era is mostly a thing of the past.
- Any trolling in the form of "funny" pictures or ham-handed sarcasms.
- Absurd comparisons with poor and powerless countries.
- Any whining about the USSR, Cuba, East Germany etc.
- Calling me "Anti-American" like that was an argument, or "jealous", which is ridiculous considering my location, or a "communist" (so what? ).

We have already done all that before, and believe me, it is not worthy of a second performance. In case of it happening anyway, the thread will be closed pronto.

But to be frank, I am mostly addressing the more mature posters and their thoughts about it. I hope at least that I am not the only one to find it outrageous, and it could be interesting to hear some suggestions about how to repair this broken society. This is especially important since it still represent an ideal for many seemingly blissfully unaware of such facts, and the wet dream of the ruling elites in Europe as well.

For more background information I will also like to refer to the Conservative nannystate - link in my sig, and http://www.cipa-apex.org/greedandgood/NewToRead.html which deals with the different arguments for huge inequality, the consequences thereof, and some suggestions about what has to be done.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

When you set rules like that, the discussion is already a failure.

 

[RedRalph]

Its really increidble. I would imagine so many people around the world would have no idea of this, seeing only the side of the US on Tv which is showcased by Paris Hilton, tatooed billion-dollar rock stars etc...

to me it shows a massive, inherent flaw in (at the very least the US version of) capitalism. there are several sides to capitalism; it tends to lend itself to freedom of the press, it does enrich somepeople and it encourages innovation in a way no other system does.

However, thats the side most people concentrate on and ignore the other sides to it, such as war for territory and resources, people working three jobs to stay alive, and the above. I'm a Marxist, so I dont claim to be totally unbiased on this topic, I dont think anyone really can. but when I see people defending this type of inequality as a good thing it just blows my mind. some people lose all sense of humanity and compassion when they turn to defending accumulation of wealth, they really do become total social darwinists. I've seen it on this site. anyone whose poor: Its their fault. anyone whose homeless: Its their fault. No circumstances taken into account.

I just find it hard to understand how some people can defend a system that leads to the above, and actually become aggressive when they have even a Scandinavian style capitalism suggested to them.

A big part of why humans were and are so successful was because we looked after eachother when injured, put ourselves in the line of fire for eachother etc... that seems to be gradually being eroded by game theorists, etc... I really hope this isnt an irreversible trend. Sorry I got a bit OT.

 

[downtown]

Well, I think I'll poke around to find the raw specifics for that study...I know that federal government agencies sometimes artifically pump up numbers in order to draw attention to problems. Regardless of whether that number is 35, 30, 27...it doesn't matter a whole lot, because thats more than we should be having. I think it *is* a problem, and we could be doing more to address it (i do not think, however, it shows that our system has "failed")

I think it is not unreasonable to say that feeding the poor is a task that outsrips the ability of private soup kitchens and churches alone. The food stamps program is fairly massive, but (as I'm sure others will mention), its also ripe with abuse, and doesn't exactly get the most nutritious food)

I'd look at this in the context of a greater public health problem, where not only are thousands of people not getting enough food, but people are getting substandard, unhealthy food, because of prohibitive cost (which, in the long run, costs all us money, even the elites)

I'm not exactly sure what the best solution is. I do not think it is reasonable to expect there to be no poverty or hunger in America, because people still the freedom to make poor choices. We can be doing a lot better than this, and some government, be it a federal, or a city, might be well served by picking up some of the slack.

In the long run though, we're going to have to address our poor nutrition, and I don't think there is one silver bullet that can do that.

 

[skadistic]

I wonder how many of these food insecure people had cable TV, cell phones, mp3 players, computers and other luxuries.

 

[Princeps]

Wow, I didin't know that looking after your weight had become such an obsession to Americans.

 

[Till]

The study.

Food insecurity, which affected 11.1% of all households, is defined as:

"At some time during the year, these
households were uncertain of having, or unable to
acquire, enough food for all their members because
they had insufficient money or other resources."

But only 3.5% of all households were "were food
insecure to the extent that one or more household
members were hungry, at least some time during the
year, because they could not afford enough food. The
other two-thirds of food-insecure households obtained
enough food to avoid hunger, using a variety of coping
strategies such as eating less varied diets, participating
in Federal food assistance programs, or getting emergency
food from community food pantries. Children
were hungry at times during the year in 265,000
households (0.7 percent of households with children)
because the household lacked sufficient money or
other resources for food."

So the number of people who actually suffered from hunger is smaller than it first appears to be. The number of food-insecure households nearly matches the number of households living bellow the poverty line, by the way.

 

[Newbunkle]

I wonder how many of these food insecure people had cable TV, cell phones and other luxuries.

Or spent their evenings at the bar, wasting their money on booze?

We need to know why exactly in each case they were hungry. How is the figure arrived at? Were they buying junk food, or nutritious food? Are they claiming any financial help to which they might be entitled? What have they done to try and help themselves?

If we don't know these things so we can examine what is wrong, then this thread is just another bashing thread, saying nothing more than "ZOMG sum ppl in Am3rika d1dnt eet pr0rly WTF!!11?"

 

[RedRalph]

The fact that people were threatened with it at all is ridiculous. I'm in an entry level govt job, i make well below the average industrial wage and I've never been close ot not being able to afford food since I started working. the fact thats its happening in the richest country in history makes it even worse.

 

[RedRalph]

Or spent their evenings at the bar, wasting their money on booze?

We need to know why exactly in each case they were hungry. How is the figure arrived at? Were they buying junk food, or nutritious food? Are they claiming any financial help to which they might be entitled? What have they done to try and help themselves?

If we don't know these things so we can examine what is wrong, then this thread is just another bashing thread, saying nothing more than "ZOMG sum ppl in Am3rika d1dnt eet pr0rly WTF!!11?"

Yeah you people always want a study to be looked into further or question its results when it makes your world-view look bad. but not when its the other way around I notice. If there was a survey which criticsed some aspect of life in say Iran or North Korea would you want to check to make sure the survey wasnt skewed? Or would you just use it as proof that their systems are inherently flawed?

 

[Murky]

I wonder how many of these food insecure people had cable TV, cell phones, mp3 players, computers and other luxuries.

This notion that starving people are secretly living a life of luxury is insane. People don't buy new computers or wide screen TVs instead of food. Get real.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

American style capitalism is dysfunctional, inhuman, and wont be around for much longer.

 

[skadistic]

This notion that starving people are secretly living a life of luxury is insane. People don't buy new computers or wide screen TVs instead of food. Get real.

Really? Go to some section 8 housing projects and look at the satellite dishes chrome rims on SUVs and how every one has a cell phone. When you spend some time every day in the ghetto come talk to me about what the poor spend on.

 

[downtown]

Do we really need an itemized budget report from every poor person before we'll belive that this is a problem?

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Really? Go to some section 8 housing projects and look at the satellite dishes chrome rims on SUVs and how every one has a cell phone. When you spend some time every day in the ghetto come talk to me about what the poor spend on.

Skad, so then there is no poverty in the US, just 'ghetto' people pretending to be poor?

 

[skadistic]

Do we really need an itemized budget report from every poor person before we'll belive that this is a problem?

Well it helps to really know how big of a problem it really is. If people are hungry because they have 200 channels and an iPod don't expect me or most people to care. They can only blame them selves. I'd also like to know how many on food stamps or other assistance. How many are old folk living on SS? Its easy to say people are hungry. Its hard to say its a problem when its shown they are hungry because of a lack of self control.

 

[Bamspeedy]

In such a society, hunger should not be an issue at all.

Define 'hunger'. Nobody dies of starvation in the US (or western Europe to be fair). When people are hungry in Western Europe people are given money by the government, when people are hungry in the US they go to soup kitchens and food pantries. But only the soup kitchens and food pantries are counted in the statistics for 'hunger'. How many people in Western Europe would be 'hungry' if welfare was cut drastically?

Despite us being supposedly 'greedy SOBs', the soup kitchens and food pantries are able to feed all those people.

For at the same time as the people mentioned struggle, a very little elite live in almost unfathomable luxury.

A response to this was posted in another thread a long time ago:

If all of their assets were liquid, U.S. billionaires often have less per capita (divided among their total national population) than overseas billionaires do. If Bill Gates divided up his fortune amongst the U.S. population, everybody would get $186. If the richest man in France did that, each person would get $422.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Arnault

 

[skadistic]

Skad, so then there is no poverty in the US, just 'ghetto' people pretending to be poor?

Is that what I said?

 

[Murky]

Really? Go to some section 8 housing projects and look at the satellite dishes chrome rims on SUVs and how every one has a cell phone. When you spend some time every day in the ghetto come talk to me about what the poor spend on.

You should go to a poverty simulation. Might prove enlightening.

 

[skadistic]

You should go to a poverty simulation. Might prove enlightening.

Simulation? Why would I do that? I lived as poor homeless person. I drive through ghettos almost every day in 3 different cities.

You go get "enlightened" in you "simulations". I'll go by what I've seen and lived in real life.