Hunger rising in America

Increasing numbers of children are going hungry in the United States

COCKEYSVILLE (AFP) — Before the pandemic closed her middle school and US immigration agents deported her father to El Salvador, Kimberly Orellana did not fear going hungry.

But with her mother now alone and cleaning houses for pay that isn’t enough to reliably feed Orellana and her two younger sisters, the 14-year-old is left to trek to a nearby school for a handout of groceries organized by a non-profit.

“Everyone in our family eats. Sometimes we need a little bit of groceries to keep our fridge full,” Orellana said as she ran the errand north of Baltimore on a cold and rainy morning during a break from classes, which are now held online.

Increasing numbers of children are going hungry in the United States as it weathers the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak, which has killed around 280,000 people and caused a once-in-a-generation economic crisis.

Nearly 12 percent of adults said they lived in a household where there was not enough to eat “sometimes” or “often” last month, according to the Commerce Department.

Ten percent of mothers reported their children under the age of five went hungry to some degree in October and November, a Brookings Institution survey found.

Non-profit Feeding America estimates over 50 million people will be considered food insecure this year, including about one in four children, reversing gains made in recent years that had brought hunger among children to its lowest level in at least two decades.

“We feel pretty confident in saying food insecurity right now is the highest on record in the modern era,” Lauren Bauer, an economic studies fellow at Brookings, told AFP.

The numbers are jarring for a country that has the world’s largest economy and is a major donor of food aid worldwide.