Submitted by Gleaners
Glass
Fred Glass, president and CEO of Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, observed Wednesday, Sept. 24 that the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) cancellation of the longstanding, bipartisan Hunger Report will deny the American public information it needs and deserves to help meet the call to feed the hungry for the benefit of not only our neighbors who are hungry, but society as a whole.
On Saturday, Sept. 20, the USDA acknowledged that it was canceling the Hunger Report, formally known as the Household Food Security Report, which has been produced annually by both Republican and Democratic administrations for 30 years. The report measures food insecurity in the United States as a means to identify ways to better feed the hungry.
The decision to cancel the Hunger Report comes after the passage of the budget reconciliation law which drastically cuts funding to federal nutrition programs for millions of children, seniors, workers, farmers, and grocers they support. Taken together with the law’s dramatic cuts to healthcare, particularly to rural hospitals and the people they serve, along with the impact of the recent rise in inflation and unemployment, these actions by the federal government will dramatically increase the depth and breadth of hunger in the United States.
“While cancelling the Hunger Report will make it harder to fight hunger, it won’t change the fact that the federal government’s policies are driving more Americans into worse hunger,” Glass said. “Hunger isn’t a them problem; it’s an us problem, and it’s there for all to see.”
Hunger is first an us problem because so many of us are hungry. The last Hunger Report released in September 2024 documented that one in seven Americans (47 million), including one in five children (15 million), are facing hunger. In Indiana alone, one million Hoosiers, including over 300,000 children, are hungry.
“We all know people at work, school, little league, church, or 4-H Club who are hungry, even if we may not realize they are hungry,” Glass said.
Of course, hunger is a devastating problem for those who are hungry. Poor nutrition is a leading cause of death in the United States, associated with more than half a million deaths per year. Most children in America today will have obesity by the time they are 35 years old. Poor, hungry people end up feeding their children highly-processed foods because that is what is affordable and available, rather than the healthy, nutritious foods they would prefer. Children in food-insecure households are more likely to have reduced immune systems, more communicable diseases, poor body weight, asthma, anxiety and depression, use hospital emergency rooms more frequently, and have overall poorer health.
But, hunger is also an us problem because it affects those of us fortunate enough not to be hungry. Food insecurity adds $1.8 billion in Indiana alone to overall healthcare costs. Increases in food insecurity rates lead to increases in violent crime rates. Food insecurity adversely impacts worker productivity, increasing costs to employers and consumers. Food insecurity reduces the number of high school and college graduates, with the resulting societal costs.
“Canceling the Hunger Report will not make the devastating and increasing impact of hunger on all Americans go away,” Glass said. “Unfortunately, the loss of this trusted source of information will make it all the harder to answer the call to feed the hungry. I respectfully request the USDA to reconsider canceling the Hunger Report.”
So much for “Making America Healthy Again”