In the 1970’s, after the U.S. significantly reduced poverty, increased economic opportunity, and
dramatically expanded federal nutrition safety net programs, the nation almost entirely ended domestic
hunger. In the succeeding decades, as poverty increased, real wages decreased, and safety net programs
were scaled back, hunger and food insecurity in America soared. Therefore, in 2022 hunger in America is
persistent and pervasive. More than 10 percent of people across the United States lived in food-insecure
households in 2020. Nearly 35 percent of households with incomes below the Federal poverty line are
food insecure (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2020). Almost 30 percent of female-headed households are food
insecure (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2020). Additionally, female, single-parent homes experience food
insecurity at almost double the rate of male single-parent households (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2021).
While the largest number of food insecure people were White, almost 20 percent of individuals who are
Black were food insecure compared to 10 percent of individuals who are White (Coleman-Jensen et al.,
2020). In addition, one in six children (15 percent) are food insecure, equating to 10.7 million children
(Coleman-Jensen et al., 2020).