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Number of food insecure Hoosiers spikes 53%

By Clayton Baumgarth

Posted December 30, 2022

Food pantries and soup kitchens have also seen an increase in foot traffic. (Clayton Baumgarth / WFIU-WTIU)

The number of food insecure Hoosiers spiked by 53% between October of 2021 and 2022. That’s based on analysis of federal data by nonprofit group Hunger Free America.

Since 2021, the number of people without enough food increased from around 375,000 to 573,000 in Indiana and 19.9 million to 25.7 million nationwide.

Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, attributes the increase to expirations on certain government assistance programs.

“Conservatives in Congress ended the child tax credit, which slashed child hunger and slashed child poverty in America,” he said. “Conservatives in Congress ended expanded school meals, and inflation is going up.”

The Household Pulse Survey from the US Census Bureau asks whether respondents have had enough food in a given seven-day period. Many responded that they had to skip meals to feed their kids. Berg said that while Hoosiers might not be going weeks at a time without food like more impoverished countries around the world, it still comes as a shock for many.

“In the richest country in the history of the world, it's really incredible that in what was a solidly middle-class state, in most parts of the state of Indiana, more than half a million Hoosiers don't have enough food in just one week,” he said.

Indiana ranks high in the nation for the rate of change of food instability over the last year. This fact supports a point from Berg that hunger in the US isn’t a lack of food distribution or availability, but a lack of funds for people in need to buy food.

“Indiana is an amazing grain production state,” he said. “So, while it's untenable, there's hunger anywhere in the United States, it's particularly appalling that major agricultural states have such high levels of hunger.”

Hunger Free America’s full report on the issue included detailed recommendations at the federal, state and city levels, including passage of the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill and the HOPE Act of 2021, reauthorization of the Child Tax Credit, which raised millions of families out of poverty, and making permanent the pandemic-era improvements in SNAP access for college students.