15% Hungry in America

If your stomach was too weak for Friday's foreclosure numbers, turn away: Monday revealed that nearly 15 percent of Americans went hungry last year.

The recession may be over for big business, but the problems of real people continue as the Department of Agriculture announced that the number hungry in this country rose to a staggering 50 million. As is often the case, the effects of hunger disproportionately affect the most vulnerable. This report revealed that 1 in 4 children lack reliable access to adequate nutrition. Poverty advocates insist that the problem will likely worsen. A national food bank network, Feeding America, said of the numbers in a New York Times piece, "Socioeconomic indicators, including the escalating unemployment rate and the number of working poor, lead us to believe that the number of people facing hunger will continue to rise significantly over the coming year." Peachy.

In response to these fears, President Obama reiterated his campaign promise to end childhood hunger by 2015, then outlined what his administration has done or is planning to do to confront the issue. These actions include a bill that seeks to fill the gap in government-subsidized meals for children during the summer, increasing food stamp funding, and pushing the creation of jobs. If this sounds adequate, keep in mind that food stamps after the recent increase pay out only $100 per family member on average. Further undercutting these proposals is an observation from the USDA's Mike Nord, who noted that a majority of hungry households had at least 1 family member who worked full-time. If that's the best of the reigning agenda, I'm worried.

So what can I do? As a member of the so-called helping professions and a blogger, I realize there are certain conventions to consider when publicly responding to a humanitarian crisis like this one. The heroic call to action begins with a memorable and alarming illustration making the stats vivid and worthy of attention (17 million hungry is equivalent to the combined populations of Washington and Michigan!). This is inevitably followed by some moralizing. I often see the word "deplorable" used in press releases. You're supposed to shame the government and/or the public for its inaction (see above). That's a given. Then you end with some moving entreaty to readers to donate some amount of money to someone who, hopefully, will try to put meat on someone's bones. Mission accomplished. More or less.

But that doesn't feel right. Chances are, as a sensitive Change.org reader, you're already beside yourself with grief and righteous anger which you'll inevitably unleash via emails to elected officials in minutes (brownie points to anyone who started writing a petition before paragraph 2). And you're very likely already aware of volunteer opportunities at food banks and can't wait to give away food and money in a heartbeat to anyone who asks. Good for you: it makes me warm just to think about all the nice things you do. What may not be obvious, what you might not already do, is question how we think of what we need. In this country, and in many others, things like food, housing, and medicine are considered commodities. Our system of food security developed with this in mind: cheap product, maximum profit at the cost of the poor.

But with 1 billion people hungry globally and 50 million in our own country, it may be time to question the wisdom of looking at food as we might look at a toasters or televisions. Food is something to be shared and guaranteed, not speculated. Of course it's important to promote jobs. But as long as many jobs in this country don't pay enough to feed a family, what we really need is to continue to fight for more meaningful social policies, those that ensure the material security of all people. This includes, yes, a food policy. For more on this, take a look at a prescient opinion piece by food writer Michael Pollan, Farmer in Chief, published a year ago. In it, Pollan describes how a well-thought food infrastructure can benefit the planet, the poor, and our economy as a whole. Check it out.

And you might think twice about portions as you plan your Thanksgiving. Just a thought.

Image courtesy of Globalenvision.org