America’s hunger problem: What’s really going on 

New numbers suggest that maybe we need to stop thinking the solution is just food.

By Parke Wilde

When the federal government’s annual hunger report came out this morning, it showed that 17.4 million U.S. households—or 1 in 7—were “food insecure” in 2014. The report, issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, showed little progress from the previous year.

In the somewhat formal terminology of government statistical agencies, food insecure means some family members didn’t have “enough food for an active, healthy life” at all times during the past year. It’s a measure of hardship, loosely related to hunger, but not as severe. For an actual measure of hunger, a seldom-noted appendix showed that at some point during 2014, 4.8% of respondents—almost 1 in 20—were “hungry” but didn’t eat because they couldn’t afford food.

Understandably, anti-hunger groups usually emphasize food as the leading remedy for food insecurity. Feeding America, the umbrella organization for the nation’s charitable food banks, estimates a national “Meal Gap” by multiplying the cost of additional food that a food-insecure person would need ($16.28 per week) times the number of food insecure persons in the United States, to conclude that all we need to do is fill a $24.2 billion shortfall—far less than 1 percent of the federal budget. In other words, the United States could easily afford to solve the problem simply by providing enough food.

But is more food really going to do it? Though little noticed in the news coverage this morning, the detailed tabulations in USDA’s annual hunger report suggest that the problem is a deeper one, and politically perhaps harder to talk about.

It sounds paradoxical, but food insecurity is actually higher for low-income households that received federal food benefits or emergency food from food pantries. The rate of food insecurity was 54 percent for low-income households that received benefits from SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps), and only 25 percent for low-income households that did not receive SNAP benefits. Similarly, the rate of food insecurity was 69 percent for low-income households that received emergency food from food pantries and only 27 percent for low-income households that did not.

The problem isn’t SNAP benefits themselves; we know from other research that food benefits reduce insecurity for individual families. The problem is poverty: it’s the poorest households that are most likely to seek out SNAP benefits. For these poor households, SNAP helps, but not enough to push the rate of food insecurity even below 50 percent.

If you look at monthly hunger patterns, it becomes clear that the real shortage has to do with the worry and instability of not having enough money. SNAP benefits, for example, are provided in one lump sum each month as a credit on a family’s Electronic Benefit Transfer card—like a debit card but just for food. USDA data show that half of all those benefits are spent in the first week after issuance, and three-quarters are spent in the first two weeks. When families run out of food, it generally happens late in the month, after benefits are exhausted. For a low-income family—especially one juggling responsibilities for children, or health care problems, or multiple jobs – almost no amount of SNAP benefits at the start of the month would be enough to prevent episodes of insecurity by the end.

It is understandable that most policy discussion about food insecurity focuses on providing more food. It is intuitive that food should be the remedy for hunger. Yet as we try to eradicate the persistent pockets of hunger that remain, the evidence suggests there’s something to be said for thinking of money, not food, as the main issue.

In a statement today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack gave a peculiarly optimistic interpretation, describing the nearly stagnant new numbers as a “promising signal” of economic recovery. But he also engaged with the bigger context, referring to the “importance of anti-poverty and nutrition programs” as part of the package of solutions, along with “efforts to improve employment and training programs.”

As his statement suggests, a full engagement with the problem of hunger will require a host of strategies—and they need not be limited to just one political party. Republicans who want to resuscitate the GOP’s formerly proud market-oriented anti-poverty agenda could pursue high-quality education for all and private-sector initiatives to set targets for increasing employment and wages. Democrats can continue to focus on sensible, moderate minimum wage increases, plus better access to transportation, childcare, and housing for people who can work, and on more robust and generous social safety nets for those who cannot.

It may be that anti-hunger groups and political leaders focus on food because they’ve lost confidence that the United States really can make progress against the deeper problem of poverty. But this is doubly wrong. Food alone cannot eliminate the spectrum of food-related worries and shortfalls—and reducing poverty is not really beyond the capacity of the American people, their government, and their economy.

Parke Wilde is associate professor in the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and author of "Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction" (Routledge/Earthscan, 2013).