Childhood hunger in the suburbs

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Monday August 18, 2014 · 1:37 PM PDT

2014/08/18 · 13:37

Today my organization, Fair Share Education Fund, is releasing our new report Childhood Hunger in America’s Suburbs. This report vividly demonstrates how the geography of childhood hunger has changed since the onset of the Great Recession, from 2007 to 2009.

Our researchers measured the number of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches under the National School Lunch Program between the 2006-2007 school year and the 2010-2011 school year. We found that the Great Recession made the risk of childhood hunger significantly worse.

And that risk is pervasive. Hunger is no longer strictly an urban and rule phenomenon. Our report demonstrates that the risk of childhood hunger is a problem affecting nearly every American community, including some of the nation’s wealthiest suburbs. This includes communities that might otherwise think hunger is a problem that happens “somewhere else.”

In our research, one statistic stood out. A strong plurality of students newly eligible for the free or reduced cost school lunch program since the onset of the Great Recession live in the suburbs – 45 percent. By comparison, 23 percent live in cities, 20 percent live in rural areas and 12 percent live in small or mid-sized towns.

Earlier this month, the Brookings Institute issued a report that traced the spread of poverty to the suburbs. Our findings reinforce the Brookings Institute report: the face of childhood hunger, like the face of its related sibling, poverty, has changed. And our perceptions toward hunger and our policies toward fighting hunger must change with it.

The fact is that the suburbs now look like the rest of America when it comes to issues such as hunger and poverty. Hunger and poverty in the suburbs are catching up to hunger and poverty in the cities, small and mid-sized towns, and rural areas.

And yet: childhood hunger is a solvable problem. We already have the tools we need to fight childhood hunger: we simply must make the most of them. Examples of programs that work include SNAP, the National School Lunch Program and the National School Breakfast Program.

We can solve hunger. We simply need the will to do so.

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Childhood hunger in the suburbs

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