Welcome to the new America, where Republicans cater to the whims of the top 1% of earners to the detriment of the remaining 99%. In the new America, the average tax break for the 1% is larger than the average salary for the 99%. It’s an America where those who have are by and large convinced that their success is their birthright and those not enjoying the same success are doomed by their own sloth and indolence. We live in an America in which the social contract has become increasingly frayed as those who have feel increasingly less connected to and sympathetic with those who do not.
We live in the strongest and most powerful country in the world (ask a Republican, they’ll be happy to thump their chests as they explain it to you)…and yet hunger is still a very real and significantly growing phenomenon. How bad have things become? Well, these numbers provided by ThinkProgress paint a bleak picture. I have a few simple questions: How is it that we can afford to wage two wars simultaneously halfway around the world…yet we lack the resources and the wherewithal to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and look after those in need here at home? Are we really to believe that killing and destroying is of a far higher priority than caring for our own here at home? And why are our elected representatives far more concerned with catering to the interests of the very wealthy than with working to ease the growing hunger and suffering outside the Beltway?
If you’re not ashamed, you’re not paying attention.
17.2 million: The number of households that were food insecure in 2010, the highest number on record. They make up 14.5 percent of households, or approximately one in seven.
48.8 million: People who lived in food insecure households last year.
3.9 million: The number of households with children that were food insecure last year. In 1 percent of households with children, “one or more of the children experienced the most severe food-insecure condition measured by USDA, very low food security, in which meals were irregular and food intake was below levels considered adequate by caregivers.”
6.4 million: Households that experienced very low food security last year, meaning “normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.”
55: The percentage of food-insecure households that participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs (SNAP, WIC, School lunch program).
19.4: The percentage of food insecure households in Mississippi, which had the highest rate in the nation last year.
3.6 percent: The amount by which food prices increased last year.
30 percent: The amount by which food insecurity grew during the Great Recession.
44: The percentage increase in households using food pantries between 2007 and 2009.
20 million: The number of children who benefit from free and reduced lunch per day.
10.5 million: The number of eligible children who don’t receive their free and reduced lunch benefits.
$167.5 billion: The amount that the U.S. lost in 2010 due to hunger (lost educational attainment + avoidable illness + charitable giving to fight hunger). This doesn’t take into account the $94 billion cost of SNAP and other food programs.
8: The number of states (FL, TX, CA, IL, NY, OH, PA, GA) where the annual cost of hunger exceeds $6 billion.
