End Hunger in America - Poster of the Week
- politicalgraphics
- Sep 26
- 2 min read
AKA Hunger
Mariona Barkus
Offset, 2008
Los Angeles, CA
29043
Since the 1930s, the U.S. government has built programs to reduce hunger in America, including the food stamp programs and the School Breakfast Program. In 2006, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) changed its language to describe households experiencing limited food intake from "food insecurity with hunger" to "very low food security." The change was made to distinguish food insecure people on the brink of hunger from those actively experiencing hunger in order to better understand the conditions that lead to hunger. While an important sector to study, anti-hunger advocates, as shown by the Poster of the Week, protested the erasure of "hunger" from the label, believing the new language whitewashes the severity of that status.
Nearly twenty years later, the Trump Administration's USDA has chosen to completely whitewash the issue of hunger. This past weekend, the USDA announced that it will end the Household Food Security Report, an annual food insecurity survey that has existed since 1995. The Report allows activists and policymakers to have a clearer perspective on the details of hunger in America, thereby informing the best ways to prevent it.
The Trump administration claimed that “trends in the prevalence of food insecurity have remained virtually unchanged” despite increases in Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) funding. This is false. Food insecurity declined from 2010 to 2021 and only started increasing again during the pandemic for obvious reasons. Additionally, the Report is not responsible for solving the issue of hunger, but it does enable activists and policymakers to determine where help is most needed. Without the Report, organizations that work to feed hungry Americans are “flying blind.”
In 2023, the Report showed that 47.4 million people–or 13.5% of Americans–lived in food insecure households, including 14 million children. This was up from 10.2% of households in 2021. It also showed that, in 2023, 58% of food-insecure households participated in SNAP or the school lunch program.
Earlier this summer, the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill Act” increased requirements for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), leaving an anticipated 2.4 million Americans without crucial food aid.
The United States is the richest country in the world. That 13.5% of the country is going hungry and 11.1% lives in poverty is cruel and illogical. That this administration is willing to make it astronomically worse? Unconscionable!
References:
I understand the purpose of among us online changing academic language, but removing the word “hunger” from the report takes the problem away from reality. Words do not soothe hunger, but only distract from the real suffering.