Setting the Goal
Persistent hunger in the United States
is a political issue more than anything
else. Hunger exists in the United States
because national, state, and local government leaders have not made eliminating it a priority. With effective leadership and the right strategies, we can
eliminate hunger in the United States—
and we can do it within a decade.
The suffering that hunger causes
individuals is a tragedy. There are
consequences for the nation as well. If
ethical and moral reasons aren’t enough
to spur action, policymakers and citizens should also consider whether the
country can afford the financial cost of
hunger. In 2011, a team of economists
from Brandeis University calculated the
direct and indirect costs of hunger in
the United States, taking into account
its effects on health, education, and economic productivity. They estimated the
total cost to the country that year to be
$167.5 billion.1
In our system of government, a problem becomes a national priority when
a critical mass of citizens is willing to
commit to solving it and to holding policymakers accountable for making progress. The public needs to demand stronger leadership on hunger, beginning
with the president setting a time-bound
Figure 1
goal—one with a deadline—to end hunger here in the United States. Only the
president can ask for everyone’s support in achieving the goal and rally the
whole country to get behind it. It will
be up to leaders in their own communities to support the president and help
ensure that sufficient public attention is
focused on ending hunger.
The United States has pursued
national goals in the past, and it has
worked to focus public attention. Most
of us know about the goal to land a
man on the moon, but there are other
examples. At the turn of the 20th century, a goal was set to provide a free secondary school education to every child
in America. It was parents of the time
who demanded access to a high school
education for all children. As any parent
knows, lack of education is closely associated with poverty. By the middle of
the twentieth century, the United States
had the most educated workforce and
military on the planet.2 The generation
of Americans that was instrumental in
winning World War II and setting the
United States on the longest period of
broad-based prosperity in the nation’s
history had far more education than
their peers elsewhere in the world.
Another example of national goal setting came in the 1960s, when President
Unemployed (UNEMPLOY) Federal Surplus or Deficit [-] as Percent of
Gross Domestic Product (FYFSGDA188S)
204
600
170
400
136
200
102
0
68
-200
34
-400
1948
1958
1968
1978
Shaded areas indicate U.S. recessions
Source: Federal Reserve Economic Data.
2 Briefing Paper, March 2013
1988
1998
2008
FYFSGDA188S, 2007=100 (Left)
UNEMPLOY, 2007=100 (Right)
0
2018
(Index)
238
800
(Index)
1,000
Lyndon Johnson established a goal to
end poverty. The so-called War on Poverty launched as a result was a catalyst
for dramatic reductions in poverty.
Progress continued during the Nixon
administration, which expanded the
Food Stamp Program and the Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for
Women, Infants and Children (WIC).
But when the economy stalled in the
mid-1970s, the country’s commitment
to fighting poverty flagged.
Hunger and poverty are inextricably linked. Federal nutrition programs
such as WIC and food stam ps (now the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP)—essential as they are—
are not enough to compensate for poverty-level incomes. The only way to defeat
hunger permanently is to fight poverty
at the same time. The remainder of this
paper will cover the key components of
such a strategy.
Job creation must be a priority—beginning
right away.
As the economy slowly climbs out
of the Great Recession, the rate of job
growth has been anemic at best. In fact,
high unemployment is projected to last
for years. Nothing is more important to
progress against hunger right now than
a robust economic recovery. At no time
since the Great Depression has there
been such a need for a national strategy
to get more people back to work. The
federal deficit will naturally rise as a result of additional spending on job creation, but this should not be a concern
for very long. As the unemployment rate
falls, so does the deficit as a percentage
of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Similarly, the deficit rises when unemployment goes up. As Figure 1 shows, this
pattern has held constant for 60 years.3
The United States has one of the
highest poverty rates in the industrialized world. Poverty exists in other industrialized countries, but it is almost always associated with being out of work.
In the United States, millions of people
who hold jobs, including full-time jobs,
still find themselves living in poverty.