No Time to Wait: Ending the Toll of Hunger

12 million American children live in homes that can’t afford enough food. Food banks across the country are reporting record shortages. Hunger costs Americans over $90 billion a year in increased healthcare spending, decreased worker productivity and lagging school performance. We’re all paying for hunger and the time is now to demand change from the incoming Presidential administration.

In a policy paper addressed to President-elect Barack Obama, NYCCAH Executive Director Joel Berg and policy analyst Tom Freedman call on the President-elect to incorporate anti-hunger initiatives into effective anti-poverty and economic renewal policies. Berg and Freeman argue for the creation of universal in-classroom school breakfast programs; the strengthening and streamlining of benefits programs including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP-formerly known as the Food Stamps Program); and the raising and indexing the federal minimum wage. Such measures will serve as a necessary step to economic revitalization and “will improve the lives of the millions of American children who already live on the economic margins and are vulnerable to the devastating effects of a prolonged economic slump,” said Berg and Freedman.

For more information on NYCCAH’s proposed initiatives to end hunger in America, download the full policy proposal here. For a complete account of President-elect Obama’s anti-hunger agenda, download his proposal to end childhood hunger by 2015.