The USA: Hunger in the Land of Plenty

Abstract

Hunger in the United States has demonstrated remarkable longevity and resilience as a social issue. In this media-saturated culture, social problems tend to come and go like fads or celebrities. In contrast, hunger has been an issue for much of the past 60 years. It was a topic of considerable discussion in the great depression of the 1930s, dropped from sight in the period of relative affluence following World War II, was rediscovered in the late 1960s, and has been on the public agenda, in one form or another, for nearly the last three decades. Each succeeding spate of attention has left a new layer of public programmes and voluntary responses. As a result, the United States differs from most other western industrialized nations in the extent and variety of its public food assistance programmes. At the latest count, there are twelve separate federal programmes which provide food or food-specific purchasing power to people in the United States, and these are supplemented by state and local programmes and by an immense variety of voluntary sector activities.