one in five U.S. households ran out of money to buy enough food

Discussion in 'Economics' started by WallStWhizKid, Jan 27, 2010.

  1. U.S. households struggle to afford food: survey

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly one in five U.S. households ran out of money to buy enough food at least once during 2009, said an antihunger group on Tuesday, urging more federal action to help Americans get enough to eat.

    "There are no hunger-free areas of America," said Jim Weill of the Food Research and Action Center. Weill said he hoped President Barack Obama would exempt public nutrition programs from a proposed three-year freeze on domestic spending.

    Obama has a goal to end childhood hunger by 2015. He backed a $1 billion a year increase in school lunch and other child nutrition programs a year ago.

    Nationwide polling found 18.2 percent of households reported "food hardship" -- lacking money to buy enough food -- in 2009, according to the group. That is higher than the government's "food insecurity" rating of 14.6 percent of households, or 49 million people, for 2008.

    Households with children had a "food hardship" rate of 24.1 percent for 2009 compared with 14.9 percent among households without children. Twenty states had rates of 20 percent or higher. Seven Southern states led the list.

    The figures were based on responses to the question, "Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy the food that you or your family needed?" The question is similar to one asked by the Census Bureau in collecting data for the annual food-insecurity report.


    http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60P65N20100126
     
  2. One reason is the rise in basic commodities, gas prices. Milk is just as expensive as gas these days. Add up the rise in unemployment rate. It has been very hard for each household to cope up with these drastic changes and rise in most basic needs.
     
  3. pspr

    pspr

    What happened to food stamps? Are these hungry people squandering their food stamps?
     
  4. bettles

    bettles

    And how many percent of that 18.2% who reported running short on money for food in 2009 had a big screen TV in their house, an SUV in their driveway, and $100+ monthly cable and cellular service options?

    Bettles
     
  5. Times can't be so bad... there's still more people growing lawn in their backyard than there's people growing potatoes and cabbage instead :cool:
     
  6. "food insecurity" is a math program for the poverty industry.
     
  7. You are right on. I know a family who is on food stamps have all the nice toys.
     
  8. You are 100% correct! People will give up food before they give up any of those.

    I think another problem is that people have no idea how to shop when they run low on money. A 25 kilo bag of rice costs 35 dollars. But Americans never think about buying that much rice because they dont like it. Americans would spend their last 5 dollars on a big mac meal at mcdonalds (which will last a few hours until they are hungry again) than spend their last 5 dollars on 5 pounds of rice which could last them almost a week.
     
  9. Soooooo true!
     
  10. I wonder what percentage of people with "food hardships" are obese? It's kind of hard to claim you don't have enough food when you eat as much as five people.
     
    #10     Jan 29, 2010