Going Hungry in America

By Anuradha Mittal, AlterNet. Posted December 10, 2004.

Today the United States faces a hidden epidemic. It is striking Americans of every age group and ethnicity, whether they live in cities or rural areas. And despite the diversity of targets, those suffering in this silent epidemic have two things in common: they are poor or low-income, and they are increasingly going without enough food.

Although politicians talk about "poverty in America," decision-makers avoid specifically mentioning the growing, and often deadly problem of hunger. George McGovern said in 1972, "To admit the existence of hunger in America is to confess that we have failed in meeting the most sensitive and painful of human needs. To admit the existence of widespread hunger is to cast doubt on the efficacy of our whole system."

Three decades later, evidence indicates that the existing system is failing a vast number of Americans.

A look at the United States reveals a wide gap between the goal of universal access to adequate nutrition and the reality of hunger that plagues millions in this country alone. The number of hungry people in the United States is greater now than it was when international leaders set hunger-cutting goals at the 1996 World Food Summit. The pledges by United States government leaders to cut the number of Americans living in hunger – from 30.4 million to 15.2 million by 2010 – are lagging behind. An estimated 35 million Americans are food insecure with food insecurity and the necessity of food stamps being experienced by at least four in 10 Americans between the ages of 20 and 65. That's 50 percent of the population.

Meanwhile, the already burdened food safety-net program, which was designed to alleviate hunger and food insecurity, is under attack by the threat of reduction of funding and ease of enrollment by policy makers. With food expenses being the most elastic part of a family's budget, as limited funds usually get allocated to fixed payments first, such as rent and utilities, food purchasing has become the most compromised portion of the average family's budget. So far in 2004, 35 percent of Americans have had to choose between food and rent, while 28 percent had to choose between medical care and food. Others, forced to stretch their budgets ever further, are buying less expensive but often less nutritious food.

The problem is worse in low-income neighborhoods and inner-city areas that face food red-lining. The majority of low income/minority neighborhoods do not have enough supermarkets to serve the entire community effectively. Therefore, these communities generally meet their food needs at smaller, more expensive corner stores – especially at liquor/convenience marts that tend to provide less nutritious foods and little if any fresh produce.

While three companies control 57 percent of the huge food retail market in California, the community of West Oakland, with 32,000 residents and a 60 percent unemployment rate has only one supermarket – and 40 liquor and convenience stores. The price of food in these small stores is almost 30 to 100 percent higher than the price in the grocery store.

Anuradha Mittal is executive director of the Oakland Institute and the former codirector of Food First/ Institute for Food and Development Policy.

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