Study Says Food Aid Is Not Reaching Those Most in Need

America’s hunger “crisis” is worsening, particularly in the nation’s agricultural heartland, where food stamps are not reaching those who need them most, a Harvard University study said Tuesday.

“We’re quite confident we have a huge crisis,” said J. Larry Brown, chairman of the Physician Task Force on Hunger in America, whose report was released by the Harvard School of Public Health.

The study showed Texas, South Dakota and Missouri atop a list of 24 states pockmarked with areas in which federal help is not reaching needy people.

Program Serves Fewer

“A chief factor seems to be the failure of the food stamp program to reach many people who need it,” Brown said. “Over 4 million more people live in poverty today than in 1980, yet the food stamp program actually serves fewer people now than it did then.”

As a result, some 20 million Americans regularly go hungry, he said.

The study did not report on why the food stamp program is failing to reach people.

Brown identified 150 “hunger counties,” those in which more than 20% of the population is poor and where food stamps reach less than 33% of the eligible population.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, hunger was centered largely in the South and Southwest, the study said.