The US Department of Agriculture released findings this week that hunger is on the rise in America: 49 million people – 17 million of them children – were unable to consistently get enough food to eat in 2008. That’s 14.6 percent of all American households, a 3.5 point jump over 2007.
The study documented both “low food security,” which describes people unable to consistently get enough to eat (49 million) and “very low food security,” describing those unable to eat because there wasn’t enough money for food. In the latter category – very low food security – there are 12 million adults and 5.2 million kids. Nearly half a million are kids under age 6 – which represents a 300 percent increase.
In Oregon, the number of “very low food security” households went from 3.9 percent in the last report to 6.6 percent in the most recent. Oregon is now among the five states with the highest hunger rate, in the company of Mississippi, Maine, Oklahoma and Missouri. Only Mississippi, at 7.4 percent, had a higher percentage than Oregon of hunger.
You can read more details about hunger in Oregon at this link. To donate to the Oregon Food Bank, click here. To learn about other actions you can take to help hungry people, check out the Oregon Food Banks’ Advocacy Alert.

November 19th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized