Almost 30 Million Americans Went Hungry Last Week As Recovery Stalls

A depressionary perfect storm continues to crush households as tens of millions of Americans are reporting they didn’t have enough to eat last week (the seven days through July 21).

Bloomberg cites the Census Bureau’s latest weekly Household Pulse Survey, revealing almost 30 million Americans went hungry last week. About 23.9 million of 249 million respondents said they had “sometimes not enough to eat.” Around 5.42 million indicated they had “often not enough to eat.” This is the highest total of hungry Americans in the survey since early May, which was around the time when food bank lines across the country were swamped with jobless and hungry folks.

Tens of millions of folks are going hungry in mid-July as the recovery stalled in late June. At the same time, a fiscal cliff is hitting where $600-a-week federal unemployment benefits are now expiring. Another stimulus bill is set to be rolled out in the near term, but Republicans and Democrats are at odds over how large the next round should be.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said both parties are “nowhere close to a deal,” one day before the fiscal cliff hits. This would undoubtedly lead to a decline in overall consumption.

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