INTRODUCTION
people cope with difficult circumstances. But families will remain on shaky ground without
a clear path to real opportunity.
President Obama has spoken of “building ladders of opportunity” for people to reach the
middle class—a concept that sends a message of hope, particularly to young people. As the
president said in January 2013, when he took the oath of office for his second term, “We are
true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same
chance to succeed as anybody else.”38
It is still possible for someone born into poverty in the United States to escape that fate
as an adult. But the rungs on the ladder of economic mobility are getting farther apart,
especially those at the bottom. Inequalities—not only of living standards, but of opportunity—start early for children in food-insecure households. Babies whose mothers suffer from
hunger or poor nutrition during pregnancy are more likely to enter the world with a low
birth weight. Children who are damaged physically and intellectually by hunger face higher
risks of developing chronic health problems, doing poorly in school, dropping out, getting
involved in crime, losing jobs and being unemployed, and finally passing the whole cycle on
to the next generation.39
Ensuring that all children have access to a high-quality education is one of the most
important investments a nation can make. Education can still get people pretty far up the
ladder. But U.S. schools do more to perpetuate social and economic inequalities than reduce
them. High-quality schools in the United States are overwhelmingly located in wealthy and
middle-class neighborhoods. Children who attend such schools perform well on achievement
BOX i.3
THE CIRCLE OF PROTECTION
Since early 2011, Bread for the World has
worked with many people of faith to create a Circle
of Protection around federal programs that reduce
hunger and poverty. Many members of the House of
Representatives have pushed for deep cuts to these
programs, but the actual cuts have come to only
about 1 percent of what had been proposed. While
food insecurity rates surged in 2008, hunger did not
continue to increase after that—even though unemployment did. The Circle of Protection campaign
helped maintain the safety net programs and
moderated the Great Recession’s impact on hunger.
Laura Elizabeth Pohl for Bread for the World
Bread for the World members from Pennsylvania discuss the Circle of
Protection in the office of Sen. Robert Casey during Lobby Day 2011.
www.bread.org/institute?
? 2014 Hunger Report? 25
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