According to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture report, Household Food Security in the United States, 2003, 11% of U.S. households over the course of 2003 “were food insecure at least some time during that year.” I’m going to read the report over the next few days and look at the methods employed, but I must say that, based on a quick look at the report, I find the results a bit fishy. The cost of food has fallen so far relative to income that the idea that so many people are “going hungry” because “there wasn’t enough money for food” is quite implausible.
Given that the results are based largely on a questionnaire that covers “the last 12 months” and asks people to answer “Yes/No” to such questions as “In the last 12 months, were you ever hungry, but didn’t eat, because you couldn’t afford enough food,” I wonder how reliable the answers are. The results, as reported by CNN — Report: Hunger affected 112 million families in 2003 — lead one to think that a large part of the population of the U.S. is in danger of succumbing to famine. That strikes me as bad reporting of phony figures cobbled together through bogus “social science” methods that are employed as part of a strategy to secure more funding for USDA food distribution programs. But I’ll still read the report.