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Report: Food hardship is up in the U.S., strong farm bill needed

Food hardship in the U.S. is on the rise, according to a new report from the Food Research and Action Center.

Randy Rosso, a senior policy and research analyst, says food hardship, or the inability to afford food for you or your family, increased from 15.1 to 15.7 in 2017.

The report also found that food hardship rates in households with children are 1.3 times higher than those without children.

“Often children are sheltered from the affects of food insecurity or food hardship by the parents because they’ll cut their own meals before cutting their children’s meal,” he says. “But that means that those parents are especially suffering.”

He tells Brownfield that’s why it’s critical that Congress pass a farm bill that does NOT include stricter work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“That will be difficult for a lot of people because they don’t actually have that much control over the number of hours they get from week to week or month to month,” he says.

The report from FRAC is based on an analysis of the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index.

Audio: Randy Rosso, Food Research and Action Center 

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