Doing What Works to End US Hunger

An excerpt from Joel’s paper for the Center for American Progress, “Doing What Works to End US Hunger: Federal Programs Are Effective, But Can Work Even Better”:

“In this era of both soaring budget deficits and escalating poverty, there is a great need for the federal government to ensure it is spending its resources as wisely and effectively as possible on the needs of those Americans who require a helping hand during hard times.  This objective fits within the mission of the Center for American Progress’s Doing What Works project, which was inaugurated by CAP earlier this year to ensure that each dollar government spends advances ambitious and carefully selected progressive goals.

There is no question that government must address the most basic of human needs—hunger and nutrition. Some federal programs focused on these needs are already very cost effective, among them the SNAP (formerly Food Stamp) and school meals programs, but they could be run even more efficiently.

These and other federal food programs are critical to millions of low-income Americans who are in crisis because of longstanding structural problems with the U.S. economy alongside existing holes in the nutrition and antipoverty safety nets. Both sets of problems are now exacerbated by the devastating consequences of the Great Recession. As recently as 2008 (before the worst of the economic downturn), 49.1 million Americans, including 16.6 million children, lived in households that suffered from food insecurity or hunger—unable to fully afford the food their families needed.1 This number exceeded the combined populations of the states of Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Wisconsin.

Combating hunger and food insecurity is an important goal in itself. But it is also a sound investment.  Voluminous data proves that hungry children learn less effectively, hungry workers work less productively, and food insecurity costs the nation tens of billions of dollars annually in health care costs. A 2007 study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that domestic hunger and food insecurity cost the American economy $90 billion annually.  Given the massive increase in food insecurity since then, this paper calculates that the cost of domestic hunger to our economy now likely exceeds $124 billion. The price we pay for food insecurity in children alone is at least $28 billion.”

Download the full report by clicking here.

View the event announcing the paper here.

Visit the CAP website to check out the executive summary and other information.