Reply #38: Record numbers go hungry in the US

[clear eye]

Source: The Guardian

Government report shows 50m people unable to put food on the table at some point last year

Chris McGreal in Washington guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 17 November 2009 18.25 GMT

More than a million children regularly go to bed hungry in the US, according to a government report that shows a startling increase in the number of families struggling to put food on the table.

President Barack Obama, who pledged to eradicate childhood hunger, has described as "unsettling" the agriculture department survey, which says 50 million people in the US – one in six of the population – were unable to afford to buy sufficient food to stay healthy at some point last year, in large part because of escalating unemployment or poorly paid jobs. That is a rise of more than one-third on the year before and the highest number since the survey began in 1995.

~snip~

Vilsack said he expected the numbers to worsen when the survey for this year is released in 2010.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/17/millions-hungry-households-us-report

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Tell us again, rwers, how the recession is ending?