This link opens a New York Times article on the rising demand for food bank assistance across the United States.
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The Food Research and Action Center released a report on the national School Breakfast Program for the school year 2007-2008.
Although the growing number of children receiving free and reduced price lunches at school signals increasing levels of need as the nation faces an extended economic crisis, it also indicates that millions of children who may face food insecurity at home have access to meals at school.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of people participating in food and nutrition programs (including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the free school lunch program, and WIC) increased steadily between 2004 and 2008, with the largest increase occurring in 2008. http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/annual.htm
The number of home foreclosure filings continued to climb in 2008. The number of foreclosures in 2008 was 81% higher than in 2007, and the 2007 rate was 75% higher than in 2006 (for a total 2-year increase of 225%).
The Housing Wage is the full-time hourly wage one would need to earn in order to pay what the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates to be the Fair Market Rent for an apartment, spending no more than 30% of income on housing costs. The table compares the wages needed for a…
About 20% of school districts participating in a voluntary survey identified as many homeless students in the beginning of the 2008/2009 school year as they had seen over the course of the entire previous year.
Feeding America (formerly America’s Second Harvest), a national hunger-relief charity, conducted a local impact survey of 160 food banks in the U.S. in 2008. All of the food banks reported an increase in demand for food over the past year, with estimated increases ranging from 29% to 38%
While the cost of food rose by 7.5 percent from October 2007 to September 2008, the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan (the mix of food items on which low-income people rely) rose even faster. Over the same time period, the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan rose by 9.4 percent.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors surveyed 25 cities between October 1, 2007 and September 30, 2008. Most cities (95%) reported an increase in demand for emergency food over the past year.