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Sunday, September 12th, 2021

With 38 Million Facing Food Insecurity, Hunger in US Soared by Nearly 9% in 2020

Author:     Kenny Stancil
Source:     Common Dreams
Publication Date:     September 8, 2021
 Link: With 38 Million Facing Food Insecurity, Hunger in US Soared by Nearly 9% in 2020
Stephan:   What stands out for me at the moment about American culture is our capacity to inflict grievous wounds on ourselves. The anti-vaxxer, anti-masker, and anti-choice male-dominant nastiness are but three examples from a long list. Then there is the very basic issue of hunger. All of this comes from not making wellbeing the first priority of America.
Volunteers fill boxes of food at an event sponsored by the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida
Volunteers fill boxes of food at a food distribution event in Kissimmee, Florida on December 10, 2020. Credit: Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty 

More than 38.2 million Americans struggled with food insecurity at some point last year, a roughly 9% surge in hunger compared with the 2019 level of 35.2 million, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“While hunger was already a massive, systemic problem in all 50 states before Covid-19 hit the U.S., domestic hunger surged during the pandemic.”
—Joel Berg, Hunger Free America

The USDA’s new report (pdf)—the federal government’s first comprehensive attempt to document how the Covid-19 pandemic and corresponding spike in unemployment exacerbated food insecurity—found that the number of children in the U.S. suffering from hunger increased from 10.7 million in 2019 to 11.7 million last year, also an uptick of approximately 9%.

Another USDA report (pdf) released last month showed that federal spending on domestic food and nutrition assistance programs in Fiscal Year 2020 reached […]

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