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In the last three years the United States has seen a significant increase in poverty. One of the most shocking and disappointing statistics is that food insecurity is at 15% in the United States. The U.S. government does not measure hunger, but rather measures this problem in levels of food insecurity. This basically means the number of households where normal intake is disrupted or reduced at some time during the year.
Households with very low food insecurity experience hunger seven to eight months out of the year, and one to seven times in each of those months. Ninety-seven percent of those in this category were adults who reduced the size of a meal or skipped a meal because there was not enough food in the home. Twenty-seven percent reported that an adult did not eat for a whole day because there was not enough money for food.
Households who were able to curb food insecurity are rated a little higher, but are still not stable. A total of 17 million households in the United States are either very low or low food insecure. Households with children who were food insecure rank as 16% of the homes in America. All at risk families would need to spend 28% more of their income to become secure.
This is not likely since the poverty rate has increased to almost 15% of the population. Although there are assistance programs to help with hunger and poverty, there will need to be a fundamental shift in the economic culture of the United States in order to defeat the problem. Corporate profits will need to shift to the working class more than they have, and political figures will have to shift focus away from corporate donors and the funding of wars in order to really turn around the hunger problem in America.
