1 in 5 kids in the United States is living with hunger. That's 14 million children, which has increased from a year ago.
Some of these children are missing meals; others are faced with daily uncertainty about food as their parents make tradeoffs between buying groceries or paying bills. But for so many children to go without adequate food in the United States is a tragedy – and a crisis.
Why Are So Many Kids Facing Hunger Now?
When the COVID pandemic first hit, hunger in the United States skyrocketed as millions of families faced unemployment, hospital bills, evictions and hardship.
But in 2021 we saw record-low food insecurity among families with children.
That’s because communities, lawmakers and people across the United States came together to take care of one another. We enacted effective government programs to help struggling kids and families, from expanded SNAP grocery benefits to help parents buy groceries to tax credits that helped families pay bills. These policies matter.
But we didn’t keep it up. Congress discontinued investment in many of these critical programs – and now we see the results.
What Can We Do?
The truth? We know exactly how to end childhood hunger in the United States.
Our proven strategies are built on one simple, yet powerful objective: ensuring children get three meals a day – today, tomorrow, and for generations.
Today, No Kid Hungry is working to rapidly increase the number of kids reached by federal summer nutrition and school meals programs. We’re also building a stronger future for kids by making sure they get healthy meals through robust nutrition programs like SNAP.
And we know that ending childhood hunger depends on families having the ability to create long-term financial stability. That's why we're investing in solutions that will make it easier for parents – especially single moms – to grow their income by continuing to support state-level policies, such as increasing the child tax credit.
Hunger vs Food Insecurity
Hunger is not something we can measure; it's something we experience. Instead, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) measures "food insecurity."
Households that are food insecure are those that struggled to provide enough food for everyone living there at some point during the year. A child living in a food-insecure household might not get enough food to eat. Or her mother may have to skip meals to feed her. Or the family may have enough to eat one month, but not the next.
In all these cases, that child is living with hunger.
Data about childhood hunger is released annually by the USDA. If you read the latest figures from the USDA, you'll see that 14 million children are facing hunger in the United States today.
Learn more about the ways you can help kids living with hunger or make a donation today.
