If there is any indicator of the toll that the Great Recession has taken on the public, it would be the statistics beginning to emerge about hunger in the US. According to a study from the nation’s largest food bank operator, the number of Americans in need of food aid has jumped 46 percent in three years, including a 50 percent jump in the number of children needing food assistance, and a 64 percent increase in hunger in senior citizens’ homes. The study, Hunger in America 2010, found that 37 million people, or roughly one in eight US residents, received food aid in 2009. That’s a 46 percent jump from a similar survey carried out in 2006. ‘Clearly, the economic recession, resulting in dramatically increasing unemployment nationwide, has driven unprecedented, sharp increases in the need for emergency food assistance and enrollment in federal nutrition programs,’ said Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of Feeding America, which operates some 200 food banks across the country. Story continues below… The study found a growing number of people having to make difficult choices about what to spend their dwindling dollars on, with the rising cost of health care a […]