Poverty - Hunger In America

When thinking of the consequences of poverty, people often visualize the poor being badly housed or, in the worst case, homeless, instead of people not having enough to eat. While it may be hard to imagine some Americans not having enough to eat, many Americans go to bed hungry or experience times when there is not enough food for the family.

During the 1980s a growing number of studies found that Americans, especially children, were suffering from hunger. Many observers did not believe these reports or thought they had been exaggerated. In 1984 a Task Force on Food Assistance appointed by President Ronald Reagan found that it could not "report definitive evidence on the extent of hunger" because there was no agreed-upon way to measure hunger.

To determine the extent of hunger in the United States, the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) in Washington, D.C., an advocacy group for the poor, released the findings of the Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project (CCHIP). In this first FRAC survey, interviews were conducted in 2,335 households with incomes at or below 185 percent of poverty and with at least one child under twelve years of age. The results of this survey, released in 1991, indicated that 32 percent of U.S. households with incomes at or below 185 percent of the poverty level were hungry. At least one child out of every eight under twelve years of age suffered from hunger. Another 40 percent of low-income children were at risk for hunger.

Between 1992 and 1994 FRAC sponsored the second round of CCHIP surveys in nine states and the District of Columbia (5,282 low-income families with at least one child age twelve or under). For the purposes of its report, FRAC defined hunger as food insufficiency—skipping meals, eating less, or running out of food—that occurs because of limited household resources. The results were reported in Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project: A Survey of Childhood Hunger in the United States (Washington, DC, 1995).

Based on the findings of the second CCHIP surveys, FRAC concluded that about four million children age twelve and under experienced hunger in some part of one or more months during the previous year. Another 9.6 million children were at risk of becoming hungry.

The CCHIP survey studied one child in each household (the child with the most recent birthday) and found that, in comparison with nonhungry children, hungry children were:

TABLE 3.9
The cumulative effect of taxes and transfers on poverty estimates, 1999–2000
(Numbers in thousands)

	2000		1999		2000-1999 Difference
Selected income definitions	Number below poverty	Poverty Rate	Number below poverty	Poverty Rate	Number below poverty	Poverty Rate
Definition 1 (current measure)	31,139	11.3	32,258	11.8	*−1,119	*−0.5
Definition 2 (definition 1 less government cash transfers)	51,335	18.6	52,542	19.2	*−1,207	*−0.6
Definition 4 (definition 2 plus capital gains and employee health benefits)	49,115	17.8	50,628	18.5	*−1,513	*−0.7
Definition 6 (definition 4 less social security payroll and federal income taxes1)	52,602	19.1	53,556	19.6	−954	*−0.5
Definition 7 (definition 6 plus the earned income credit (EIC))	48,331	17.5	49,523	18.1	*−1,192	*−0.6
Definition 8 (definition 7 less state income taxes)	48,755	17.7	49,954	18.3	*−1,199	*−0.6
Definition 9 (definition 8 plus nonmeans-tested government cash transfers)	30,736	11.1	31,961	11.7	*−1,225	*−0.6
Definition 11 (definition 9 plus the value of Medicare and regular-price school lunch)	29,753	10.8	30,800	11.3	*−1,047	*−0.5
Definition 14 (definition 12 plus the value of Medicaid and other means-tested government noncash transfers)	23,911	8.7	24,161	8.8	−250	−0.1
*Statistically significant at the 90 percent confidence level.
1This definition refers to social security and federal income tax liabilities before taking into account refundable credits i.e. EIC.
SOURCE: "The Cumulative Effect of Taxes and Transfers on Poverty Estimates: 1999–2000," in Poverty 2000, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC, September 2001 [Online] http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/poverty00/tablee.html [accessed August 6, 2002]

• More than three times as likely to suffer from unwanted weight loss.
• More than four times as likely to suffer from fatigue.
• Almost three times as likely to suffer from irritability.
• More than three times as likely to have frequent headaches.
• Almost one and a half times as likely to have frequent ear infections.
• Four times as likely to suffer from concentration problems.
• Almost twice as likely to have frequent colds.

Based on the findings from CCHIP, FRAC concluded that although federal food programs are targeted to households most in need, a common barrier to program participation is a lack of information, particularly about eligibility guidelines. FRAC believes that if federal, state, and local governments made a greater effort to ensure that possible recipients were aware of their eligibility for food programs, such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the School Breakfast Program, there would be a large drop in hunger in the United States.

In 1997 the Urban Institute conducted the National Survey of American Families (NSAF). Nearly half of low-income families (those with family incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line) who were interviewed in 1997 reported that the food they purchased ran out before they got money to buy more or they worried they would run out of food. Four out of five of these families with food problems reported suffering actual food shortages, and one out of five worried about food shortages. More children than adults lived in families that worried about or had trouble affording food, so that 54 percent of low-income children experienced the problem. The NSAF was repeated in 1999, and families reported fewer problems affording food than in 1997. Four in ten low-income families were either concerned about or had difficulty affording food, down 10 percent from 1997. However, approximately half of all low-income children still lived in families with difficulties affording food or concern about lack of food. A third NSAF was conducted in 2002, with results to be released in late 2004.

Since 1995 the Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Census Bureau have conducted annual surveys of food security, food insecurity, and hunger. (Food-secure households are those that have access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food-insecure households are uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet basic needs at all times during the year.) The survey is based on an eighteen-item scale:

1. Worried food would run out before (I/we) got money to buy more
2. Food bought didn't last and (I/we) didn't have money to get more
3. Couldn't afford to eat balanced meals
4. Adult(s) cut size of meals or skipped meals
5. Respondent ate less than felt he/she should
6. Adult(s) cut size or skipped meals in three or more months
7. Respondent hungry but didn't eat because couldn't afford
8. Respondent lost weight
9. Adult(s) did not eat for whole day
10. Adult(s) did not eat for whole day in three or more months
11. Relied on few kinds of low-cost food to feed child(ren)
12. Couldn't feed child(ren) balanced meals
13. Child(ren) were not eating enough
14. Cut size of child(ren)'s meals
15. Child(ren) were hungry
16. Child(ren) skipped meals
17. Child(ren) skipped meals in three or more months
18. Child(ren) did not eat for whole day

FIGURE 3.5
Food insecurity and hunger in U.S. households, 1995–2002

FIGURE 3.6
Households by food security status, 2002

Figure 3.5 shows that the food insecurity (uncertainty over acquiring sufficient food) and hunger have risen steadily since 1999. The number of food-insecure households rose from about 9 percent to 11.1 percent of U.S. households, and the prevalence of hunger rose from about 3 percent in 1999 to 3.5 percent in 2002. In 2002, 11.1 percent of households reported food insecurity at some time during the year, and 3.5 percent reported being hungry. (See Figure 3.6.)

Low-income households were more likely to experience food insecurity and hunger during the year. More than 14 percent of households below the poverty line reported being hungry at some time during 2002, about 3.5 times the rate in the general population. (See Figure 3.7 and Table 3.10.)

Families headed by married couples are much less likely to experience food insecurity than families headed by single females; 10.4 percent of married-couple households and 32 percent of female-headed households reported food insecurity in 2002. Food insecurity is also more prevalent among African-American families, 22 percent of whom experience food insecurity, and Hispanic families, 21.7 percent of whom experience food insecurity, than among non-Hispanic whites, 8 percent of whom experience food insecurity. (See Table 3.10).