My work at this non-profit group Share Our Strength has me doubting some of the reporting from Mr. Rector. While I do not doubt that many of the "poor" as classified by the U.S. Census Bureau are far from destitute (we do live in America and not Somalia) I am a little concerned about his trivializing of various hunger reports.
The USDA just released its annual report on household food insecurity. A household is classified as having very low food security if the household is ‘food insecure to the extent that eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and their food intake reduced, at least sometime during the year, because they could not afford enough food’. That means that for at least some portion of the year someone in that household went hungry because they either lacked the resources for food or lacked access to food. Now the report shows that 9.1% of households in America can be classified as having very low food security and tihs number increases to 14.5% for households with children under the age of 18. The numbers are even higher for ethnic minority households with children (17% for Hispanic households with children and 16.4% for Black households with children). Those numbers are disconcerting to say the least. So is it fair to say only a mere 4% of Americans are not hungry? No, maybe only 4% are chronically hungry but the actual percentage of families dealing with poverty that will cause them to worry consistently about whether they can afford enough food week to week is actually much higher.
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My work at this non-profit group Share Our Strength has me doubting some of the reporting from Mr. Rector. While I do not doubt that many of the "poor" as classified by the U.S. Census Bureau are far from destitute (we do live in America and not Somalia) I am a little concerned about his trivializing of various hunger reports.
The USDA just released its annual report on household food insecurity. A household is classified as having very low food security if the household is ‘food insecure to the extent that eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and their food intake reduced, at least sometime during the year, because they could not afford enough food’. That means that for at least some portion of the year someone in that household went hungry because they either lacked the resources for food or lacked access to food. Now the report shows that 9.1% of households in America can be classified as having very low food security and tihs number increases to 14.5% for households with children under the age of 18. The numbers are even higher for ethnic minority households with children (17% for Hispanic households with children and 16.4% for Black households with children). Those numbers are disconcerting to say the least. So is it fair to say only a mere 4% of Americans are not hungry? No, maybe only 4% are chronically hungry but the actual percentage of families dealing with poverty that will cause them to worry consistently about whether they can afford enough food week to week is actually much higher.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR125/ERR125.pdf
Timely info Mr. M.
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