One in seven seniors in America
-- some 8.3 million people -- faced the
threat of hunger in 2010, a 78 percent
spike since 2001, according to a study
released today by Meals On Wheels, the
nonprofit that delivers meals to the
homebound.
The “Senior Hunger Report Card”
found while the risk of hunger for the
U.S. population as a whole has declined
since the end of the recession in 2009,
it rose for people age 60 and older,
mainly among those earning less than
$30,000 –- or one to two times the
poverty level. (The federal poverty
level in 2010, the period studied, was
$10,830 for a single person and $14,570
for a couple.) James P. Ziliak of the
University of Kentucky and Craig
Gundersen of the University of Illinois
authored the report.
“There is no question that we
are failing our seniors, some of the
nation’s most vulnerable citizens,” said
Enid A. Borden, CEO of the Meals On
Wheels Research Foundation, in a
statement. “The numbers spell out our
failure with clarity, and at the same
time they call us to action. No one in
this, the richest nation on Earth should
face the threat of hunger, no one. And
seniors, who have little power to change
their circumstances, deserve our special
attention.” (See Borden’s exclusive
Huff/Post50 blog post on the report for
more.)
At greatest risk were seniors
living in the South and Southwest,
minorities, people who were divorced or
separated, the disabled, and seniors age
60 to 69 (versus those over age 75). In
terms of geography, the threat of hunger
for seniors increased in 44 states since
2007, the report found, rising two
percentage points in the “Top Ten Hunger
States” (see slideshow below). Hunger
risk declined or remained the same in
just six states: Mississippi, Minnesota,
South Carolina, Indiana, Louisiana and
Idaho.
Women make up 60 percent of the
population facing a hunger risk;
African-Americans and Hispanics are
nearly twice as likely to confront a
hunger threat -– although food
insecurity for these groups has declined
since 2008.
Hunger translates into economic
challenges for the U.S. economy, note
Ziliak and Gundersen in the paper: “…
food insecurity is associated with a
host of poor health outcomes for seniors
such as reduced nutrient intakes and
limitations in activities of daily
living. This implies that the recent
increase in senior hunger will likely
lead to additional nutritional and
health challenges for our nation.”
Hunger risk also affects
extended family: : “…the prospects for
being under the threat of hunger greatly
exceed those households with no
grandchild present,” the authors write.
Some 31 percent of seniors living with a
grandchild were food insecure --
although that’s down from 36 percent in
2009.
The report based its
measurement of hunger risk on the
Current Population Survey (CPS), which
includes a series of up to 18 questions
on food security over the previous 30
days and 12 months. This report focused
on the one-year period.
