Poverty and Consistency of Food Supply

It is clear that poor Americans are not under*nourished and, over time, experience an abundance rather than a chronic shortfall of food. However, even though the poor, in general, have an ample food supply, some do suffer from temporary food shortages. For example, even if a poor household, on average, has an ample food supply, it might have to cut back meals or go without if food stamps run out at the end of the month. This problem of tem*porary food shortages leads some advocates to claim there is widespread "hunger" in the United States.[26]

In reality, government data show that most poor households do not suffer even from temporary food shortages. Overall, as Chart 4 shows, 98 percent of U.S. households report that they always had "enough food to eat" during the past four months, although not always the kinds of food they would have preferred. Some 1.8 percent of all households report they "sometimes" did not have enough food to eat during the previous four months, while 0.4 percent say they "often" did not have enough food.[27]



Among the poor, the figures are only slightly lower: 92.5 percent of poor households assert that they always had "enough food to eat" during the pre*vious four months, although 26 percent of these did not always have the foods they would have pre*ferred. Some 6 percent of poor households state that they "sometimes" did not have enough food and 1.5 percent say they "often" did not have enough food.[28] The bottom line: Although a small portion of poor households report temporary food shortages, the overwhelming majority of poor households report that they consistently have enough food to eat.



Chart 5 provides six additional questions that explore this issue in greater detail. Across this array of questions, 73 percent to 95 percent of poor households report they are free of the par*ticular food problem mentioned. Significant food shortages affect only a minority of poor house*holds. For example, 13 percent of poor house*holds with children report that their children sometimes or often did not have enough food to eat during the past four months. Disturbingly, one poor adult in twenty reports going at least one entire day in the previous four months with*out eating at all due to a lack of money for food.[29] While this represents a stressful condi*tion for the individual involved, it is atypical of the poor in general.

While significant temporary food shortages do occur for some households in the U.S., they are rare. For example, across the whole U.S. population, in a given month, one child in three hundred will skip a meal because of the family's lack of money for food. One child in a thousand will go a whole day without eating for the same reason.[30]