WASHINGTON – More than 35.5 million people in this country went hungry in 2006 as they struggled to find jobs that can support them, a figure virtually unchanged from the previous year, the Agriculture Department said yesterday.
Single mothers and their children were among the most likely to suffer.
The 35.5 million people represented more than one in 10, or 12.1 percent, who said they did not have enough money or resources to get food for at least some period during the year, according to the department's annual hunger survey. That is compared with 35.1 million people who made similar claims in 2005.
“This is encouraging, but we know we have more work to do,” said Kate Houston, USDA's deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services. She said the numbers aren't much different from 2005, which saw a decline after five straight years of increases.
Of the 35.5 million people, 11.1 million reported they had “very low food security,” meaning they had a substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat. For example, among families, a third of those facing disruption in the food they typically eat said an adult in their family did not eat for a whole day because they could not afford it.
“No one in America should go hungry,” Houston said.
Among the findings:
Among families, about 12.6 million, or 10.9 percent, reported going hungry for at least some period last year. Those disproportionately reporting hunger were single mothers (30.4 percent); black households (21.8 percent); Hispanic households (19.5 percent); and households with incomes below the official poverty line (36.3 percent).
States with families reporting higher prevalence of hunger from 2004 to 2006 included: Mississippi (18.1 percent); New Mexico (16.1 percent); Texas (15.9 percent); and South Carolina (14.7 percent).
Of the 35.5 million people reporting periods of hunger last year, 12.6 million were children.
Separately, a Gallup Poll released yesterday found that nearly a third of Americans have at one point worried about becoming homeless and many more are taking in friends and relatives needing a home.
“People are worried even though it might not ever happen to them,” said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless. “When people read the news and read about bankruptcies, home foreclosures and auto plants being closed, they worry that they may be next.”
Twenty-eight percent said they were concerned at one time about becoming homeless. A greater percentage, 44 percent, said they had opened their own homes to a friend or relative who faced being forced onto the streets.
Recent figures from the Department of Housing and Urban Development show a decline in the number of chronically homeless, those described as continuously living on the streets for a year or more or homeless at least four times in the past three years. That number dropped nearly 12 percent from 2005 to 2006 – from 175,900 to 155,600.
Overall, HUD estimates that there were 754,000 homeless people in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available.
