I did write to 3 of those websites asking them to point out the data.

None of them answered.

So I wrote to the two people that wrote the USDA report that those websites keep referring to and I got an answer from Mark Nord, one of the authors of that report. Evidently they get a lot of requests like this because it appears to be a "canned" response:


The official statistics on food insecurity are on our web site at http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/foodsecurity (click on "Key Statistics and Graphics") and in our annual report, Household Food Security in the United States, 2008, also accessible from that page. For information specifically on children, see also the USDA report, "Food Insecurity in Households with Children," available at http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib56

It is common for advocates and media to cite USDA statistics, put their own interpretation on what those statistics mean, and then attribute the entire statement to USDA. Most of the statements you cite would be examples of that practice.

The statement, "12 million children go to sleep hungry in the United States" is an egregious example. 12 million is a USDA statistic for the number of children living in food-insecure households in 2007. (The number was up to 17 million in 2008.) While it is true, based on a sizeable body of research, that many of those children are adversely affected by this experience, the evidence is that only a tiny proportion "go to sleep hungry." For starters, in about half of those households, the food insecurity extended only to adults, not to children. In most or the remaining households--those in which children were also food insecure--the severity of their insecurity was at the level of affecting diet quality, variety, and desirability, but not quantity. It is unlikely that any children in those households went to bed hungry. About 1 million of the 17 million children (in 2008) lived in households in which one or more child had "very low food security" at some time during the year--a condition of severe food insecurity that is consistent with having been hungry at times because the household could not afford enough food. Not all children in such households experienced that condition themselves. The exact number is not known, but it was between 506,000 (the number of households in which those conditions existed for at least one child) and 1,000,000 (the number of children who lived in those households). Our statistics do not, however, provide any information about whether children went to bed hungry, and, indeed, we do not ask such a question on the survey.

So, please see the materials I referenced above, and get back to me if you have further questions after doing so.

Yours,
Mark

I don't want anybody here to think that I do not care about hungry children or hardships caused by the economy. This should and is being addressed by the President who uses more accurate statistics. I just wish some of this money that we do not really have being pissed away on crap like the $1.7 million for pig odor research could go toward feeding the kids instead of a re-election ploy.

I don't blame these websites for making the situation seem dire in order to get more donations. I don't blame Bobert for latching on to these claims because he is concerned also.

I do object to using hyped information to further a cause because it turns people off. It is used as a tool right here to blame something on the teabaggers. It is dishonest despite the good intentions.

What should be done is to redirect the waste in government spending toward the people that really need it.