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Good Graph Friday: Who's going hungry

At some point last year, about 17 million U.S. households had some difficulty feeding everyone in their family.That amounts to 14.5 percent of U.S. households, according to a report released last month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The percentage of households who experienced food insecurity in 2010 was virtually unchanged from 2009. But it has risen by about 3 percentage points since 20
USDA / Today

At some point last year, about 17 million U.S. households had some difficulty feeding everyone in their family.

That amounts to 14.5 percent of U.S. households, according to a report released last month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The percentage of households who experienced food insecurity in 2010 was virtually unchanged from 2009. But it has risen by about 3 percentage points since 2007, the year the country officially went into recession.

The report classifies people as food insecure if they’ve had trouble feeding their family at some point during the year.

A subset of that group, comprised of about 6.4 million households, were classified as having very low food security. That means that at some point during the year someone in the house went hungry.

The report found that about 16.2 million children were living in food-insecure households. Still, the report noted that children are often shielded from hunger by the adults in the home.

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