Study Sheds Light on Broadening U.S. Hunger Problem

Dusti Ridge leans on her cane and waits patiently for her number to be called at Bread for the City, a food bank in southeast Washington, D.C. When she hears "56," she steps into the nonprofit group's pantry to find out what she'll be eating for the next week.

Kale, green peppers, yellow tomatoes, and dried cherriesperfect for a favorite brown rice recipego into her shopping bag. So does a whole chicken. But she passes on canned green beans; too much salt, she says.

Ridge, 62, has been coming to the food bank once a month for more than a decade, and takes pride in choosing "exotic" foods that some of the charity's clients avoidlike the venison that was donated recently after deer in a local park were culled.

Ridge is typical of millions of Americans who rely on food banks to survive: She is in poor health and lives on disability payments as she undergoes chemotherapy treatments for ovarian cancer. But as a nationwide study released Monday by the nonprofit group Feeding America makes clear, the number of people who rely on food pantries, soup kitchens, school lunch programs, senior citizens' Meals on Wheels deliveries, or other food initiatives to supplement their daily diet is a complex and growing mosaic that cuts across the nation's demographic lines.

About one in seven Americansmore than 46 million peoplerely on such programs to get by, according to the study, which involved confidential surveys of more than 60,000 recipients of food aid from groups affiliated with Feeding America, a network of 200 food banks that distribute donated food to programs in all 50 states.

The ranks of the hungry include 12 million children and 7 million seniors, plus millions more among the working poor, military families, the unemployed, and young college graduates. Those in each group said their reliance on food aid stemmed from a daily struggle to put healthy and nutritious food on the table when all that many can afford is inexpensive processed food that fuels a cycle of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.

NG Staff. Source: Feeding America, Hunger in America National Report 2014.

The study, called Hunger in America 2014, comes nearly a year after the U.S. government reported that a record number of low-income Americansmore than 47 millionwere receiving food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The study by Feeding America found that just 55 percent of those who get aid from its affiliated programs also received food stamps. One in five said they had never applied to the federal food stamp program because they believed they wouldn't be eligible for such help.

The study's suggestion that perhaps 20 million or so people are receiving local food aid but are not getting federal food stamps indicates that the scope of America's hunger problem is likely well beyond the enrollment figures reported by any one aid programand could touch about one-fifth of the nation's population.

"Feeding America is feeding more people than ever before," said Maura Daly, a spokeswoman for the group. "The public-private partnership in addressing hunger in America is essential."

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Study Sheds Light on Broadening U.S. Hunger Problem