A Program to End Hunger—Hunger 2000, the organization's 10th annual report on the state of world hunger, says that the United States is the only industrialized country with widespread hunger, with some 31 million people at risk. The data shows that people in 3.6 percent of all American households were hungry and 10.2 percent of households were at risk of hunger.

"As much as we'd like to think that ours is a generous society, the fact is that the richest country in the world does less than any other developed nation to combat pervasive hunger," says David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, a nationwide citizens' movement against hunger based in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The report argues that the United States could cut the number of its hungry to some 16 million for $5 billion a year, which breaks down to a cost of only $18 a year for each person in the country. The U.S. government would have to contribute just $1 billion more yearly to lead the international effort to cut hunger worldwide, Bread for the World says. The total is less than one-third of one percent of the federal budget.

"For starters, Congress should this year raise the minimum wage and pass the Hunger Relief Act," says Rev. Beckmann. "The Hunger Relief Act would extend food stamps to more hungry people, and a $1 increase in the minimum wage would put food on the table of a low-income family for six months."

In the last 50 years, almost 400 million people worldwide have died from hunger and poor sanitation, according to the report. That's three times the number of people killed in all wars fought in the entire 20th century. Significant progress has already been made in reducing global hunger. Thirty years ago the number of undernourished people totaled 959 million — one in three people in the developing world. Today, less than one in five people are undernourished.

"The benefits of ending global hunger are so huge that any rational person has to wonder why we have not done it already," says Fawzi Al-Sultan, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a cosponsor of the report. "Death, especially infant mortality, and disease rates would fall. Families would be healthier and happier, and their children more able to learn. Children would be healthier, happier and more able to learn. Productivity would rise as workers no longer had to work on empty stomachs."

The report says that one in ten households in the United States cannot afford the food they need.

"While the record-setting stock market and low unemployment have become cliché topics in the press, the booming economy hasn't improved the lives of all Americans," Rev. Beckmann says. "This is particularly striking when you realize that hunger is one problem we can actually solve. But churches and charities can't do it all. Our government must do its part. Congress needs to pass the Hunger Relief Act and raise the minimum wage."

Bread for the World calls on Congress to invest an extra $5 billion annually in nutrition programs with proven track records.

Similarly, a global commitment could cut hunger in half in the developing world over the next 15 years. At the 1996 World Food Summit, the nations of the world agreed to reduce undernutrition in developing countries by 50 percent in 20 years. This goal will not be met unless industrialized countries provide the necessary resources. The U.S. share of this effort would be just $1 billion per year.

The Extent of Hunger in the United States

"In the United States, hunger does not manifest itself dramatically like famine and starvation," Rev. Beckmann says. "The face of hunger is much different in our country than it is overseas. But although it's easier for us to ignore, it is still a widespread problem."

One in ten U.S. families cannot always afford the food they need, according to recently released data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some 19 million adults and 12 million children live in these homes. Too many of these families have to choose between buying food or paying the rent. Some of these people are going hungry; some parents are skipping meals so that their children can eat. Growing numbers are turning to soup kitchens and food pantries.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture uses Census data to assess the extent of food insecurity and hunger. When a family is described as "food insecure," it means that they cannot always afford the food that they need. They are forced to cope by lowering the quality of their diets, or skipping meals, or having the adults go a whole day without eating. When a household is classified as "food insecure with hunger," even the children go without eating.

In 1998, 3.7 million U.S. households (3.6 percent) were hungry and 10.5 million households (10.2 percent) were at risk of hunger. Nearly one in five children and more than one in ten adults live in a food-insecure (hungry or at risk of hunger) household.

In mid-1998, U.S. unemployment was at a low 4.5 percent and inflation was 1.9 percent. The U.S. economy remained strong in its eighth straight year of expansion. Yet, despite the booming economy, hunger and food insecurity persisted at about the level of 1995.

The booming economy coincided with cutbacks in the very government programs that over the years have lifted millions of people out of poverty. The Food Stamp Program is a prime example.

In the time from the historic Field Foundation visit to Mississippi in 1967—which exposed deep hunger and poverty to a shocked nation—to the late 1970s, hunger declined dramatically. The expansion of the Food Stamp Program during this period made a big difference. Yet today this program is in disarray. Nine million people have dropped off the Food Stamp Program in the last five years, and this may be the biggest single reason that hunger did not decline despite falling unemployment.

Overcoming Hunger in the United States

Once the federal government decides to act, it would take only a couple of years to cut hunger in half simply by strengthening existing nutrition programs. Needed improvements in the national nutrition programs would cost about $5 billion annually, or $18 for each person in this country which is about the cost of an entrŽe in a nice restaurant. The most important of these programs are the Food Stamp Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and the school breakfast and lunch programs.

"This is an era of unprecedented opportunity for the United States, as the most powerful nation on earth, to eradicate hunger in our own great country, and help shape a more food secure future for all," says Representative Tony P. Hall (D-OH).

The Food Stamp Program enables some low-income people to survive while working at low- paying jobs. As "the first line of defense" against hunger, it is the most extensive of the federal nutrition assistance programs, reaching nearly 20 million people. Food stamps help all eligible people to buy more food than they could otherwise. It also fosters better nutritional habits. Food stamp recipients eat 20 percent to 50 percent less junk food than non-recipients.

Bread for the World and hundreds of other groups across the country are pushing Congress this year to strengthen the Food Stamp Program by passing the Hunger Relief Act (S. 1805, H.R. 3192). This legislation would make more people eligible for food stamps by changing outdated rules that keep some hungry families from getting help and reestablishing eligibility for legal immigrants.

Bread for the World members and churches across the country are also urging their members of Congress to raise the minimum wage by $1 over the next two years. A person working full-time at minimum wage earns only $10,700 per year, which is $5,960 below the 1998 poverty level for a family of four. An estimated 11.8 million workers would benefit from a $1 increase in the minimum wage. Opponents to raising the minimum wage contend that it would hurt workers in the long run by increasing unemployment. But studies have proven that a modest increase in the minimum wage has never been connected to a spike in the aggregate unemployment rate.

U.S. workers used to be able to feed their families. But the wages of low-skilled people have lagged behind inflation for two decades. Welfare reform has moved more people into jobs that pay too little to feed a family. Nearly 40 percent of all emergency food recipients of America's Second Harvest, a nationwide food bank network, come from homes in which at least one adult is working.

"We need to reestablish an economy in which all full-time workers receive a livable income," says Bread for the World Institute's report.

Hunger in the Developing World

Right now, one person in five suffers from persistent hunger worldwide, compared to one in three 25 years ago. Some 791 million hungry people live in the developing world.

By region, South Asia contains 283.9 million hungry people; East and Southeast Asia, 241.6 million; Sub-Saharan Africa, 179.6 million; Latin America, 53.4 million; Near East and North Africa, 32.9 million.

The absolutely worst conditions continue to exist in sub-Saharan Africa, where one out of every three people is hungry or undernourished.

The causes of African hunger include: high government debt burdens, inadequate funding for health and education, pervasive poverty, poor agricultural productivity on fragile lands, weak government institutions and the AIDS pandemic.

Undernourishment has declined steeply in East and Southeast Asia over the past 25 years. The Asian and Pacific regions still account for nearly two-thirds of all undernourished people in the developing world.

The largest number of people who suffer nutritional deficiencies live in South Asia, where poverty, discrimination against women, unsafe water and poor sanitation contribute to poor health. More than 50 percent of children under the age of 5 are stunted (i.e. low height based on age and/or underweight) due to insufficient food consumption and poor health conditions.

Many countries of the former Soviet Union, Central Asia and Eastern Europe undergoing the transition from centrally-planned to market-based economies have experienced economic hardship and rising levels of undernutrition during the 1990s. The report says some 22 million undernourished people live in Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and 4 million in Eastern Europe. Poverty has skyrocketed to 29 percent in Uzbekistan, 50 percent in Kazakhstan and 76 percent in Krygystan.

By 2020, one in four children under the age of five—as many as 135 million children—will be chronically undernourished in the developing world, compared to one in every three children in 1995.

Ending Global Hunger

The World Food Summit proposed in 1996 that world undernutrition nutrition be reduced 50 percent by 2015. The total cost would be $60 billion over 15 years, or $4 billion per year in increased spending.

"One of the best ways to provide food security in the developing world is to assist small-scale farmers to become more productive," says Mr. Al-Sultan, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The Rome-based IFAD is a specialized United Nations agency with a specific mandate to combat hunger and poverty by helping the rural poor in the poorest regions of the world. IFAD helps them increase their food production, raise their income and improve their health, nutrition and education standards.

For twenty years, IFAD has remained the only international institution that focuses 100 percent of its resources on helping poor, rural people grow more food, earn more money and work more effectively as communities for better health, nutrition and education.

"The ultimate challenge is to identify sustainable agricultural practices and policies that both enhance the natural resource base and assist the farmer's family," Mr. Al-Sultan says.

In addition to funds, hungry people need policy changes to help them earn a living and have a voice in political decision making:

• Livelihood strategies that assure people assess to adequate income and other resources to meet basic nutritional needs;
• Social investment strategies, such as education and health care, that help people provide for their own basic needs and contribute to the larger society; and
• Empowerment strategies that strengthen poor and hungry peoples' ability to influence decisions that affect their lives.

"The failure to end hunger has been the 20th century's greatest moral blind spot," says Rev. Beckmann. "Although people are hungry because they are poor and political systems do not function properly; because of wars or because people belong to oppressed ethnic and racial groups, we do not have to end all these problems to end hunger."

From 1981 to 1992, the countries of East and Southeast Asia reduced the number of undernourished people at the average rate of 12.4 million people per year, with approximately 34,000 people per day moving out of hunger. Yet these remarkable gains were threatened by authoritarian government, cronyism and corruption, which contributed to Asia's financial crisis in 1997-98. The crisis pushed an estimated 200 million additional people into poverty, temporarily reversing a decade's worth of progress against hunger. In Indonesia and elsewhere, food riots and popular protests for political reforms underscore the need for transparent, participatory government institutions.

To provide some perspective on the cost of tackling global hunger, when the Y2K computer crisis emerged, the U.S. government saw it as an emergency and spent more than $8 billion. U.S. corporations spent $50 billion on the threat, and the world spent more than $500 billion. In comparison, for just $5 billion a year domestically and $1 billion internationally the US government could make a visible difference in the real, immediate problem of hunger both at home and around the world.

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Celebrating more than 25 of years of seeking justice, Bread for the World is a Christian voice for ending hunger in the new century. A nonpartisan citizens' movement of 44,000 people of faith, including 2,000 churches, BFW members lobby our nation's decision-makers about legislation that addresses hunger. Bread for the World Institute, a partner organization, engages in research and education on policies related to hunger and development.

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