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-- The Emergency Food Assistance Program supplies 54% of pantries, 34% of kitchens, and 31% of shelters; and
-- the Emergency Program on Indian Reservations supplies 2% of pantries, 1% of kitchens, and 2% of shelters.
FA's president and CEO, Vicki Escarra said:
"Clearly, the economic recession, resulting in dramatically increasing unemployment nationwide, has driven unprecedented, sharp increases in the need for emergency food assistance and enrollment in federal nutrition programs. Hunger in America 2010 exposes the absolutely tragic reality of just how many people in our nation don't have enough to eat. Millions of our clients are families with children finding themselves in need of food assistance for the very first time. It's morally reprehensible that we live in the wealthiest nation in the world where one in six people are struggling to make choices between food and other basic services."
In November 2009, the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (USDA) reported that 49 million Americans, including 17 million children, are food insecure; that is, they "had difficulty providing enough food for all their (family) members due to a lack of resources. The prevalence of food insecurity was....the highest observed since nationally representative food security surveys were initiated in 1995."
In September 2009, the US Census Bureau reported rising poverty, falling incomes, and growing numbers of uninsured US households. Even by the Bureau's conservative estimates, 39.8 million Americans were impoverished, the highest level since 1960, and 17.1 million lived in extreme poverty at below one-half the official threshold.
A revised October 2009 Census analysis showed 47.4 million (15.8% of the population, including one-fifth of the elderly) below the poverty line, much higher than the above figure and rising.
The official poverty level for a family of four is $21,203, a way outdated threshold developed over 40 years ago. In 2007, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) said a family of four in Peoria, IL needed $42,900 to be above poverty. In Chicago, it was $49,000 and in New York nearly $72,000. The same reality exists in large and smaller cities throughout America.
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