Ending Hunger in America, 2014 Hunger Report Full Report | Page 31

INTRODUCTION 2
CHAPTER

loss of so many public sector jobs after the recession. By March 2013, 744,000 public sector
jobs had been lost since the end of the recession in June 2009, according to a report in the Wall
Street Journal.24 March 2013 is when sequestration went into effect—the automatic budget
cuts that are the result of the failure of Congress to negotiate a budget agreement by September
2011. It is important to note that sequestration was not designed as a strategy to reduce the
deficit—it was intended as a threat that would force legislators to agree on a deficit reduction
strategy. It was an ineffective threat, as it turned out.
In July 2013, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that if the sequester continued
throughout 2014, it would result in combined public and private sector job losses of between
300,000 and 1.6 million.25 A self-inflicted wound such as this is obviously not speeding recovery
from the recession, nor is it improving the government’s capacity to fight hunger. Read about
how Bread for the World is working to counter the effects of sequestration on the nation’s most
vulnerable people on page 44.

Figure i.8

Length of Time in Poverty Over a Two-Year Period, 2008-2009

Share of population below poverty threshold

60%
50
40
30

32.2%

20

20.1%
14.1%

10
0

4.6%
At least one month

Six months or more

One year or more

Two years

Source: Lawrence Mishel, Josh Bivens, Elise Gould and Heidi Shierholz (2012), The State of Working America, 12th edition,
Economic Policy Institute. EPI analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

www.bread.org/institute?

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