Ending Hunger in America, 2014 Hunger Report Full Report | Page 25

INTRODUCTION
nutrition programs such as WIC and food stamps (now the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP)—important as they are—are not enough without a corresponding
effort to end poverty. The only way to defeat hunger permanently is to fight poverty at the
same time, and that is what this report aims to show us how to do.
2014 is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the War on Poverty. This was a “war” fought
largely with new and improved
social programs and with laws that
Figure i.3 SNAP Caseloads Closely Track Changes in Poverty
dismantled structures of racial
injustice that had persisted since
In millions, through December 2012
the Civil War. The civil rights move70
ment in the early 1960s was a driving
60
force that spurred government to
Individuals with incomes at 130% of poverty*
take action against poverty. At the
50
time, half of all African Americans
lived in poverty.9 But civil rights
40
leaders were demanding more than
SNAP participants
30
racial justice. At the 1963 March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom,
20
where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
10
made his historic “I Have a Dream”
speech, one of the demands of the
0
marchers was to raise the minimum
‘85 ‘87 ‘89 ‘91 ‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11
wage to $2.00, which is equivalent
Source: Dorothy Rosenbaum (March 11, 2013), “SNAP Is Effective and Efficient,” Center on
to $13.39 today.10 This demand fell
Budget and Policy Priorities. CBPP analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Census
Bureau data.
on deaf ears in Congress and the
White House. Economic justice
must accompany racial justice. The War on Poverty’s most serious weakness was a failure to
take effective action against economic inequalities in the labor market.

A Plan to End Hunger
Chapters 1-4 of this report lay out a four-part plan to end hunger. We can summarize these
as 1) a jobs agenda, 2) a stronger safety net, 3) human capital development, or “investing in
people,” and 4) public-private partnerships and community initiatives.
We will not achieve a lasting end to hunger without a commitment to all four parts of
the plan. Because problems like hunger are multifaceted, their solutions must be as well.
Policies tend to address social problems in isolation from each other. Instead we should
be thinking holistically, which makes it possible to see the relationships between various
causes of the problem.
It’s like links in a chain: Nutrition programs make it possible for children to do well in
school. Children who do well in school can get more education and not have to settle for lowwage work. If the economy falters and these children, now adults, lose those good jobs, SNAP
and local partners that support SNAP outreach make it easier to get help for themselves and
their children while they are out of work.
Links in a chain also go the other direction. A child who is hungry does poorly in school…
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