On Tuesday, December 14, the United States Conference of Mayors and Sodexho USA will release the results from their annual survey on hunger and homelessness in America. In this report they are likely to claim that there have been dramatic increases in hunger and homelessness in America, based on their survey of 25 U.S. metropolitan areas’ food bank usage. The Conference of Mayors has released a similar report each year since 1986, each year claiming similarly dramatic increases in hunger and homelessness.[1]

The report measures “hunger” by the number of persons using food banks or soup kitchens. The Conference of Mayors has reported that these numbers have increased substantially in each of the past 18 years, and it is expected that similar increases will be reported this year.[2]

The mayors’ hunger reports, however, are vague. They do not give the number of persons using food banks or soup kitchens but instead merely report the rate of increase in use compared to the prior year. In 2003, for example, the report stated that emergency food use had increased by 17 percent during the past year and that 88 percent of cities had registered an increase in emergency food assistance.[3]

There are three reasons to believe that the mayors’ claims of rapid and continuing increases in “hunger” or food bank use are inaccurate and exaggerated. Specifically, the mayors’ data:

• Reflect an implausible rate of growth. The mayors have reported that food bank and soup kitchen use has increased at an average rate of 17 percent per year for the past decade and a half. The number of persons receiving emergency food aid appears nearly to double every four years or so.
  
  When the mayors’ annual growth figures are seen in aggregate, the picture is quite alarming. Chart 1 shows the growth in emergency food use from 1986 to 2003 according the mayors’ data.(Because the mayors’ reports do not specify actual numbers of users, 1986 is set as the base year equaling 100.) If the mayors’ figures are accurate, there were 14 times more people receiving food aid in 2003 than in 1986.
  

• Are contradicted by U.S. Census Bureau surveys. Census data show a relatively small increase in the use of food pantries and soup kitchens in both central cities and the nation as a whole between 1995 and 2003, as shown in Table 1. In the nine-year period between 1995 and 2003, the Census survey showed that the number of persons using food pantries or soup kitchens increased somewhat, from 9.2 million to 10.3 million. The number of persons receiving emergency food in central cities increased from 2.8 million to 3.4 million.[4]
  
  As Chart 2 shows, the trend reported by the Conference of Mayors over the same period is radically different. While the Census shows about a 12 percent growth in emergency food use between 1995 and 2003, the mayors’ reports show that emergency food use in major cities increased 150 percent.
  

• Are contradicted by Second Harvest reports. The mayors’ data are contradicted by detailed surveys conducted by Second Harvest, the major supplier to food banks. Second Harvest reports that emergency food use increased by 9 percent between 1997 and 2001. The mayors’ reports claim that emergency food use increased by nearly 100 percent during the same period.
  

Use of Food Banks in the United States
As noted above, the mayors’ report does not give figures on the number of persons receiving emergency food aid. Instead, it simply reports the percentage of growth in emergency food use from year to year. Over the past 17 years, the mayors have reported that food bank use has grown at an average rate of 17 percent per year. According to the mayors’ reports, food bank use roughly doubles every four years.

However a more accurate accounting of food bank usage is the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Emergency Food Assistance System Client Survey, which estimates that food pantries serve 4.3 million persons in a given week.[5]

Using these figures and surveys of the number of times a person reports visiting a food pantry in a given month, the USDA estimates that 12.5 million people were served by a food pantry in that month and that between 18 million and 24 million persons are served at least once during the course of a year. These figures are generally consistent with the estimate made by America’s Second Harvest of 23.3 million people seeking emergency food assistance from a food bank, pantry, or kitchen at least once during 2001.

Hunger in the United States
In its annual Household Food Security Survey, the USDA defines hunger not as the use of food pantries, but as physical discomfort caused by actual food shortages due to a lack of funds to obtain food. The USDA makes clear that hunger is not the same as malnutrition and that most hunger experienced in the United States is short-term.[6]

According to the USDA, on a typical day, less than one American in 200 will experience hunger due to a lack of money to buy food.[7] The hunger rate rises somewhat when examined over a longer time period; according to the USDA, some 7.0 million Americans (2.4 percent of the population) were hungry at least once during 2003.[8] Nearly all hunger is short-term and episodic rather than continuous.

Some 92 percent of those who experienced hunger in 2003 were adults, and only 8 percent were children. Overall, some 462,000 children (or 0.6 percent of all children) were hungry at some point in 2003.[9] In a typical month, roughly one child in 400 skipped one or more meals because his or her family lacked funds to buy food.

According to the USDA, overall hunger has declined slightly since measurement began in 1995. In that year, 4.1 million households had at least one person who experienced hunger at some point during the year. By 2003, the number had fallen to 3.9 million households.[10]

Hunger among children, however, has declined substantially since the mid-1990s. As Chart 4 shows, the number of hungry children was cut in half between 1995 and 2003. According to the USDA, in 1995, there were 887,000 hungry children; by 2003, the number had fallen to 420,000.[11] Put another way, the USDA classifies only 0.6 percent of children as hungry.

Conclusion

Policymakers should be wary of the claims of “increasing hunger” that are likely to be made in the upcoming Conference of Mayors / Sodexho USA 2004 Hunger and Homelessness Survey. The Conference of Mayors has made similar claims since 1986, which are inconsistent with government data and other, more reliable surveys. The continuing broadcast of such alarming yet inaccurate figures does not help policymakers better understand the problem of hunger in America.

Melissa G. Pardue is Social Welfare Policy Analyst in Domestic Policy Studies, Robert Rector is Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies, and Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., is Senior Policy Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis, at the Heritage Foundation.