United States
With one in four children in the U.S. still hungry, we won’t rest on the good we’ve done. Instead, building on lessons learned over more than 20 years, we’ll work smarter – and harder – to end childhood hunger.
Hunger in the U.S.:
- More than 39 million people living in the United States, including 12 million children, lack the means to get enough nutritious food on a regular basis. As a result, they struggle with hunger at some time during the year. Source: Feeding America
- Rates of food insecurity are substantially higher than the national average among households with incomes near or below the federal poverty line (29.1 percent), among households with children headed by a single woman (27.8 percent) and among black (21.2 percent) and Hispanic (16.2 percent) households. Source: USDA
- 1 in 7 Americans rely on food pantries & meal service programs to feed their families. Source: Feeding America
- More than 29 million children receive free or reduced-price lunch each school day. More than half of them get breakfast, and nearly 9% have access to summer meal sites. Source: USDA
- 40% of food in the U.S. goes to waste. Reducing waste by 15% could feed more than 25 million Americans every year. Source: Natural Resources Defense Council
- Americans throw away the equivalent of $218 billion each year. Moreover, almost all of that uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills where it decomposes and releases methane, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas that is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Source: Natural Resources Defense Council