12.3% of U.S. households food insecure in 2016

USDA reported today that the rate of household food insecurity fell during the economic recovery of the last five years of the Obama administration, from 14.9% in 2011 to 12.3% in 2016. The annual statistics are based on a national household survey each December, which asks about 18 different experiences related to food security during the year.

The new statistics represent modest improvements after a period of exceptionally high food insecurity in the United States. From the time the survey measurement began in the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, the rate of household food insecurity never exceeded 12% [typo corrected, 4pm]. Then, during the Great Recession, in the last year of the W. Bush administration, this leading measure of food-related hardship jumped from 11.1% in 2007 to 14.6% in 2008, the largest ever single-year increase.

Although it is sometimes said that USDA no longer measures "hunger," one of the 18 survey items is a direct question asking survey respondents whether they went hungry during the year: The statistical supplement to the new USDA report shows that 4.0% of household respondents reported being hungry in 2016.

In the late 1990s, the United States and many other countries adopted goals for cutting food insecurity and hunger by half. Yet, the rate of food insecurity is higher now than it was at the time those goals were set. In the longer term, there has been no national progress toward reducing food insecurity and hunger.

A bi-partisan National Commission on Hunger in late 2015 made a series of sensible recommendations for reducing U.S. hunger. The report includes several compromises on themes that are likely to appeal to Republicans and Democrats alike, including protecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from deep cuts, promoting dietary quality, and supporting work for program participants. At Brookings, the economist Jim Ziliak has recommended an agenda for modernizing SNAP (.pdf) that includes a benefit increase.

Yet, as Congress takes up the next Farm Bill, which will reauthorize SNAP, there is serious concern that leadership in both the House and Senate will support a more punitive approach with a focus on budget reduction at the expense of the poorest Americans. If that happens, it is easy to imagine that rates of household food insecurity could reverse course, end their recent brief turn toward national goals, and climb once more.

In my view, Americans of all political persuasions, Democrat and Republican, whether oriented primarily toward the social safety net or toward market-based solutions, should express high ambitions for reducing food insecurity and hunger in the United States.