People In Need

The Facts of Hunger and Poverty

In the United States

Over 35 million people—including nearly 13 million children—live in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger. These at-risk people make up more than one in ten households in the United States.

Some people in these households frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for a whole day. People facing hunger are increasingly turning to the Food Stamp Program for assistance in feeding their families.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors reports that requests for emergency food assistance are on the rise, with nearly half of requests coming from households with children and over a third from employed adults.

Almost half the cities surveyed in the mayors’ report said they are not able to provide an adequate quantity of food for those in need, and 63 percent reported they had to decrease the quantity of food provided and/or the number of times people can come to get food assistance.

In the World

Out of the 6.7 billion people living in the world today, nearly a billion go hungry.

Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes—one child every five seconds. Every year, 3 million children under the age of five die because they are undernourished.

Yet far more children live with poor nutrition than die from it. For infants and young children, the effects of chronic malnutrition in the early years of life are largely irreversible.

More than 20 million low birth-weight babies are born annually in developing countries. These babies risk dying in infancy, and those who survive often suffer lifelong physical and mental disabilities.

The four most common childhood illnesses are diarrhea, acute respiratory illness, malaria, and measles. Each of these illnesses is both preventable and treatable, but poverty interferes with parents’ access to necessary immunizations and medicines.

In Texas

In Texas, one in six families is unsure where their next meal will come from or how they will afford it.

Unemployment in Texas is high and continues to rise. In mid-2009, more than 353,000 Texans were receiving unemployment benefits, a three-fold increase from the previous year.

With nearly one out of four children living in poverty, Texas’ child poverty rate leads the nation at 22.1 percent. Almost 16 percent of Texans—1.3 million households with 1.4 million children—are classified as food insecure, ranking Texas 48th of the 50 states.

Employment opportunities for many Texans are restricted to jobs that pay low wages, trapping them into a life of hardship that shapes the quality of life they can afford for their children.

Full-time work does not guarantee an adequate income for many Texas families. In Texas, 26 percent of workers (2.4 million) are in low-wage jobs, and one out of every eight (348,000) working families lives in poverty.

Children in Poverty

Preschool and school-aged children who experience severe hunger have higher levels of chronic illness, anxiety, depression, and behavior problems than children who receive adequate nutrition.

Children without enough to eat lack the fuel to engage in learning. They have lower levels of academic achievement, are less likely to be in school or attentive when present, and are more likely to fail, be held back, and drop out of school than their peers.

For families living on tight budgets, junk food and fast food are usually more accessible than nutritious food. Children who face chronic food shortages in these settings often fill up on high-fat foods and sugary soft drinks. A direct result of this causal connection between poverty and obesity is that one in three Texas youth (ages 10-17) is overweight or obese.

Sources: Bread for the World, Center for Public Policy Priorities