Only Two OECD Countries Where Hunger Is More Rampant than in US

Life is not so bad in Europe, even though within the European Union, the number of people who do not have enough money to buy all the food they need has strongly increased since 2007 — during the ensuing financial meltdown, it is in the United States that the situation has deteriorated the most dramatically.

Bloomberg reported data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to present the chart below.*

It shows to what extent the populations of European countries cannot afford expenditures in food: 4.6 percent of the total German population, 9 percent for Belgium, and an astonishing 30.1 percent of the Hungarian population. In Greece, the number of people who cannot afford to purchase all the food they need has doubled, from 8.9 percent in 2007 to almost 18 percent today.

But in the world’s leading economy, the United States, 21.1 percent of people do not have enough disposable income to purchase all the food they need. Within the OECD community, Hungary and Estonia are the only countries with an even worse result.

[In the U.S.] food stamps account for close to 14 percent of food expenditures. This information was reported last year in a tweet containing the aforementioned chart* by Bloomberg journalist Michael McDonough.

The number of people who depend on food stamps to eat has almost doubled in the last seven years. Hence, it represents almost 48 million Americans.

*Editor’s note: The referenced chart can be found at the following link: http://www.express.be/pictures/lowres/web/misc/going_hungry_in_2014.png