By Leah Douglas
(Reuters) – Hunger reached its highest point in the U.S. last year in nearly a decade with 18 million households, or 13.5%, struggling at some point to secure enough food, a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released Wednesday said.
Hunger has been on the rise in the country since 2021, after years of decline. U.S. Census Bureau data last year showed a rise in food insecurity after the end of programs that expanded food aid during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report did not provide an explanation for the increase. Anti-hunger group Feeding America found in May that hungry people in the U.S. were facing a $33.1 billion shortfall in money to meet their food needs, in part due to higher food prices.
One million more households were food insecure in 2023 than in 2022, the USDA report said. About 6.8 million of the 18 million households suffering food insecurity experienced very low food security, meaning the diets of one or more household members were disrupted during the year because they could not afford to buy enough food.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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