The following figures are according to Feeding America. The first sentence is among the most interesting. But the overall scale of the claimed ‘food insecurity’ is astonishing. Are the figures telling us the whole, genuine picture or are they misleading? If they reflect the true situation, how on earth did such a thing come about in one of the richest nations on earth? Note how disproportionately high is the figure for single mothers.

Although related, food insecurity and poverty are not the same.  Unemployment rather than poverty is a stronger predictor of food insecurity.

Poverty[1]

• In 2009, 43.6 million people (14.3 percent) were in poverty.
• In 2009, 8.8 million (11.1% percent) families were in poverty.
• In 2009, 24.7 million (12.9 percent) of people ages 18-64 were in poverty.
• In 2009, 15.5 million (20.7 percent) children under the age of 18 were in poverty.
• In 2009, 3.4 million (8.9 percent) seniors 65 and older were in poverty.

Food Insecurity and Very Low Food Security[2]

• In 2010, 48.8 million Americans lived in food insecure households, 32.6 million adults and 16.2 million children.
• In 2010, 14.5 percent of households (17.2 million households) were food insecure.
• In 2010, 5.4 percent of households (6.4 million households) experienced very low food security.
• In 2010, households with children reported food insecurity at a significantly higher rate than those without children, 20.2 percent compared to 11.7 percent.
• In 2010, households that had higher rates of food insecurity than the national average included households with children (20.2 percent), especially households with children headed by single women (35.1 percent) or single men (25.4 percent), Black non-Hispanic households (25.1 percent) and Hispanic households (26.2 percent).

Related posts:

1. More people are on food stamps in the USA than live in Poland.
2. And some people think that the USA does not have a welfare state!
3. If we had had welfare reform like America, we could have had this:
4. “What Beveridge denounced as the ‘giant evil’ of idleness is now being incubated on a mass scale by the very welfare state designed to eradicate it.”
5. Nearly six million working age people claim benefits