Struggling to make ends meet due to the economic downturn that has left nearly 15 million people unemployed, tens of millions of Americans are flocking to food banks, soup kitchens and emergency shelters in need of food assistance, according to a recently released report.
Feeding America, the nation's largest food bank network, found that 37 million Americans - or one in eight - seek emergency food assistance annually, including 14 million children and three million elderly individuals. That is a 46 percent increase from Feeding America's last study, which was conducted in 2006, before the Great Recession."Clearly, the economic recession, resulting in dramatically increasing unemployment nationwide, has driven unprecedented, sharp increases in the need for emergency food assistance and enrollment in federal nutrition programs," Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of Feeding America, said in a press release. "Hunger in America 2010 exposes the absolutely tragic reality of just how many people in our nation don't have enough to eat. Millions our clients are families with children finding themselves in need of food assistance for the very first time."
rest at http://www.economyincrisis.org/content/one-eight-americans-seek-food-banks
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