USDA Hunger Report Harbinger of More Bad News
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Nov 17, 2009 5:40PM
The USDA released its annual report on Household Food Security (which is a sanitized way of saying "hunger") yesterday and the results were sobering. An estimated 17 million households, or 14.6 percent of the population, has experienced "food insecurity" at one point in the past twelve months. These figures are the highest since the USDA started tracking numbers in 1995.
Last year report indicated 1 out of every 6 children in the country went hungry. With the recession lingering and unemployment showing no signs of decreasing, the number of children going hungry in America is now 1 in 5 . In Illinois, the number of hungry children could increase to 33 percent, which is simply shameful for a state in the middle of the heartland.
The report makes it more imperative than ever that the good work of food banks like the Greater Chicago Food Depository and the Illinois Hunger Coalition not go unnoticed. They're on the front lines of combating hunger on a local level and need whatever support they can get.