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Informe
del gobierno
25%
de los niños estadounidenses
pasaron hambre el año pasado
Democracy
Now!, 17/11/09
Nuevos
datos gubernamentales indican que casi 50 millones de
estadounidenses (incluido el 25% de los niños) tuvieron
dificultades para obtener lo suficiente para comer. El
Departamento de Agricultura llegó a la conclusión de que
casi 17 millones de niños pertenecen a hogares en los que
escasearon los alimentos el año pasado, es decir, cuatro
millones más que el año anterior. Los datos del gobierno
han causado sorpresa incluso a los activistas contra la
pobreza. Vicki Escara, presidenta de la organización de
beneficencia Feeding America, declaró: ‘Esto es
inconcebible. Es como si viviéramos en un país del Tercer
Mundo’. La cantidad total de estadounidenses que pasan
hambre probablemente sea mayor. El informe se basa en datos
de 2008, cuando la tasa de desempleo alcanzó un pico de 7,2
%. Desde entonces, dicha tasa se elevó a más del 10%”.
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Congress
should make a priority of expanding federal nutrition
programs that are aimed at helping millions of struggling
families feed their children. The need to bolster these
programs was underscored again this week in a dismaying
Department of Agriculture study showing that a record number
of households had trouble getting sufficient food at one
time or another last year.
These
facts are troubling enough, but a separate federal study
showed that even before the recession began, more than
two-thirds of families with children who were defined as
"food insecure" under federal guidelines contained
one or more full-time worker. This suggests that millions of
Americans were trapped in low-wage jobs before the downturn
that made it more difficult for them to provide children
with adequate nutrition.
Families
were categorized as "food secure" or "food
insecure" based how they answered several questions on
their eating habits during the previous 12 months. Among
other things, adults were asked whether they or any of their
children had ever forgone eating for an entire day because
the family lacked money for food.
According
to the new federal data, the number of people in households
that lacked consistent access to adequate nutrition rose to
49 million in 2008, 13 million more than in the previous
year and the most since the federal government began keeping
the data 14 years ago.
About
a third of struggling households had what the researchers
called "very low food security," meaning that
members of the household skipped meals, cut portions or
passed on food at some point during the year because they
lacked money. The other two-thirds managed to feed
themselves by eating cheaper or less varied foods, relying
on government aid like food stamps or resorting to food
pantries and soup kitchens, which have been seeing heavier
and heavier traffic in recent years.
Families
with inadequate resources typically feed the children first,
shielding them from hardship as much as possible. But the
new data showed that the number of households in which
children were exposed to "very low food security"
rose to 506,000 from 323,000 in 2007.
The
Bush administration tried to deep-six this annual survey.
But President Obama has dealt with it openly and called the
danger to children especially troubling.
Mr.
Obama, who is traveling in Asia, has set himself the task of
wiping out child hunger by 2015. To do that, Congress needs
to get busy on a broad plan to expand and fully pay for a
whole range of nutritional programs aimed at school-age
children and their families. Only then will vulnerable
children across the country get the nutrition they need.
