Poverty in America

[nadinbrzezinski]

In 2008, 17 million households, 14.6 percent of households (approximately one in seven), were food insecure, the highest number ever recorded in the United States. Four million households became food insecure in 2008, the largest increase ever recorded (p. iii, USDA 2008). (To get population figures from family size figures, multiply family size numbers by 2.58, the average family size.)

In 2008, about one-third of food-insecure households (6.7 million households, or 5.7 percent of all U.S. households) had very low food security, up from 4.7 million households (4.1 percent) in 2007.(,p. iii). In households with very low food security, the food intake of some household members was reduced, and their normal eating patterns were disrupted because of the household’s food insecurity (USDA 2008, p. iii ).  This was also the largest increase ever recorded since nationally representative food security surveys were initiated in 1995, as well as the largest year-to-year percentage increase.

In 2007, 15.8 percent of households with children were food insecure at some time during the year. In about half of those households, only adults were food insecure, but in 8.3 percent of households with children, one or more of the children were also food insecure at some time during the year. In 0.8 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 (Nord 2009).

http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm

Comment here. http://nadinbrzezinski.posterous.com/poverty-in-america

[Denninmi]

1. Honestly, I can't imagine living like that.

Most of us in the "middle class" can't -- it's one thing having to juggle funds to pay the unexpected car repair bill, that sort of thing, and if push comes to shove, we cut back on discretionary spending. Its quite another to literally not know when you can eat again.

I fear though, that far more of us are going to find out what that feels like in the United States of Haiti.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Yup...

We are heading that way.

[deutsey]

3. I grew up working poor

I managed to go to college and have made it into the middle class (lower middle class), but as George Bernard Shaw once said, the chill of poverty has never entirely left my bones.