Ending Hunger in America, 2014 Hunger Report Full Report | Page 23

INTRODUCTION
bers of people who go hungry
Figure i.2 Number and Percent of Food Insecure Individuals in the
every year remain shockingly

United States, by Race and Ethnicity
high. The fact is that we tolerate levels of hunger in the
Number
Percent
United States that would be
unthinkable in other devel12.0%
White
23,829,000
oped countries. The causes of
hunger in this country are not
unique, so solutions that have
worked elsewhere could also
Hispanic 24.9%
12,545,000
work here.
In recent decades, we’ve
somehow come to accept that
the nation’s prosperity does
Black
9,591,000
25.5%
not need to be shared. The
top earners make more than
the top earners in any other
developed country, while the
Other
3,001,000
13.7%
lowest-paid workers are worse
off than their counterparts in
all but a few of these counSource: Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Mark Nord, and Anita Singh (September 2013), Household Food
tries.7 Being a “developed”
Security in the United States in 2012, Statistical Supplement, U.S Department of Agriculture
country surely means more
than having an advanced economy. Moral and social development must be priorities
as well.

Setting a Goal
There is still hunger in the United States because national, state, and local leaders have
not made eliminating it the priority it should be. But with effective leadership and the right
strategies, we can eliminate hunger in the United States—and we can do it by 2030.
In the United States, a problem becomes a national priority only when a critical mass of
citizens is willing to commit to solving it and to holding policymakers accountable for making
progress. The public needs to demand stronger leadership on hunger, beginning with the
president setting a goal to end it—a goal with a deadline.
Only the president can ask for everyone’s support in achieving the goal and rally the whole
country to get behind it. Then it will be up to leaders in their own communities to support the
president and help ensure that ending hunger gets the public attention it needs.

28 percent of African American children
live in high-poverty neighborhoods, compared with

4 percent of white children.

3

0

5

10

15

20

25

During the 2000s, the number of poor
people living in the suburbs grew by
64 percent—more than twice the
growth rate in cities (29 percent).4

30

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