IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i2p814-d722898.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why the World Should Not Follow the Failed United States Model of Fighting Domestic Hunger

Author

Listed:
  • Joel Berg

    (Hunger Free America, New York, NY 10004, USA)

  • Angelica Gibson

    (Hunger Free America, New York, NY 10004, USA)

Abstract

Many industrialized nations have followed the lead of the United States (US) in reducing workers’ wages and cutting government safety nets, while giving their populaces the false impression that non-governmental organizations can meet the food and basic survival needs of their low-income residents. The history of the last 50 years and the global COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate why that is a mistake, leading to vastly increased household food insecurity, poverty, and hunger. This paper takes a close look at US data to help to better understand the significant impact US federal government policy measures had on limiting hunger throughout the pandemic and how we can learn from these outcomes to finally end hunger in America and other developed nations. The top three policy prescriptions vital in ending household food insecurity in the US and industrialized countries are as follows: (1) to create jobs; raise wages; make high quality healthcare and prescription medicine free; and ensure that high quality childcare, education, transportation, and broad-band access are affordable to all; (2) to enact a comprehensive “Assets Empowerment Agenda” to help low-income people move from owing to owning in order to develop middle-class wealth; and (3) when the above two steps are inadequate, ensure a robust government safety net for struggling residents that provides cash, food, and housing assistance.

Suggested Citation

  • Joel Berg & Angelica Gibson, 2022. "Why the World Should Not Follow the Failed United States Model of Fighting Domestic Hunger," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(2), pages 1-14, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:2:p:814-:d:722898
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/2/814/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/2/814/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Rabbitt, Matthew P & Gregory, Christian A & Singh, Anita, 2021. "Statistical Supplement to Household Food Security in the United States in 2020," Administrative Publications 327344, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Rabbitt, Matthew P & Gregory, Christian A & Singh, Anita, 2020. "Household Food Security in the United States in 2019," Economic Research Report 327207, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Rabbitt, Matthew P & Gregory, Christian A & Singh, Anita, 2021. "Household Food Security in the United States in 2020," Economic Research Report 327186, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Gregory, Christian A. & Singh, Anita, 2020. "Statistical Supplement to Household Food Security in the United States in 2019," Agricultural Economic Reports 305693, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    5. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Gregory, Christian A. & Singh, Anita, 2021. "Statistical Supplement to Household Food Security in the United States in 2020," USDA Miscellaneous 313486, United States Department of Agriculture.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mossenson, Sharonna & Giglia, Roslyn & Pulker, Claire E. & Chester, Miranda & McStay, Catrina & Pollard, Christina M, 2024. "Evidence for initiating food safety policy: An assessment of the quality and safety of donated food at an Australian food bank," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    2. Tahna L. Pettman & Carmel Williams & Sue Booth & Deborah Wildgoose & Christina M. Pollard & John Coveney & Julie-Anne McWhinnie & Marian McAllister & Carolyn Dent & Rory Spreckley & Jonathan D. Buckle, 2022. "A Food Relief Charter for South Australia—Towards a Shared Vision for Pathways Out of Food Insecurity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-16, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Colleen Heflin & Xiaohan Sun, 2022. "Food Insecurity and the Opioid Crisis," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 703(1), pages 262-284, September.
    2. Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Reed-Jones, Madeline & Hales, Laura J. & Burke, Michael P., 2024. "Household Food Security in the United States in 2023," Economic Research Report 344963, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Kathryn M. Cardarelli & Emily DeWitt & Rachel Gillespie & Rachel H. Graham & Heather Norman-Burgdolf & Janet T. Mullins, 2021. "Policy Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Food Insecurity in Rural America: Evidence from Appalachia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(23), pages 1-13, December.
    4. Zhongqi Fan & Amy M. Yang & Marcus Lehr & Ana B. Ronan & Ryan B. Simpson & Kimberly H. Nguyen & Elena N. Naumova & Naglaa H. El-Abbadi, 2024. "Food Insecurity across Age Groups in the United States during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(8), pages 1-19, August.
    5. Hoeschle, Lisa & Wang, Hong Holly & Yu, Xiaohua, 2024. "State-level heterogeneities in US food insecurity – an assessment of long-term predictors," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343686, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Jiyoon Kim & Otto Lenhart, 2024. "Paid family leave and the fight against hunger: Evidence from New York," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(7), pages 1503-1527, July.
    7. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Rabbitt, Matthew P & Gregory, Christian A & Singh, Anita, 2021. "Household Food Security in the United States in 2020," Economic Research Report 327186, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    8. repec:ags:aaea22:335818 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Akkerman, Renzo & Buisman, Marjolein & Cruijssen, Frans & de Leeuw, Sander & Haijema, Rene, 2023. "Dealing with donations: Supply chain management challenges for food banks," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    10. Joshua Berning & Rebecca Cleary & Alessandro Bonanno, 2023. "Food insecurity and time use in elderly vs. non‐elderly: An exploratory analysis," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(1), pages 280-299, March.
    11. Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore, 2023. "Understanding SNAP: An overview of recent research," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    12. Joshua Berning & Alessandro Bonanno & Rebecca Cleary, 2024. "Disparities in food insecurity among Black and White households: An analysis by age cohort, poverty, education, and home ownership," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(1), pages 234-254, March.
    13. Perry Singleton, 2023. "The effect of social security benefits on food insecurity at the early entitlement age," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(1), pages 392-413, March.
    14. repec:ags:aaea22:335990 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Seung Jin Cho & Brent Kreider & John V. Winters, 2023. "Resource booms, state economic conditions, and child food security," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(3), pages 1734-1752, September.
    16. Isaac Sohn Leslie & Jessica Carson & Analena Bruce, 2023. "LGBTQ+ food insufficiency in New England," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(3), pages 1039-1054, September.
    17. Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Jales, Hugo B. & Liu, Judith & Wilson, Norbert L., 2023. "Moving Policies Toward Racial and Ethnic Equality: The Case of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1272, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    18. Santos, Mateus Rennó & Testa, Alexander & Weiss, Douglas B. & Jackson, Dylan B., 2022. "County jail incarceration rates and food hardship in the United States," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    19. Norbert Lance Weston Wilson, 2023. "A call for justice work in agricultural and applied economics," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 393-408, March.
    20. Dorceta E. Taylor & Ashley Bell & Destiny Treloar & Ashia Ajani & Marco Alvarez & Tevin Hamilton & Jayson Velazquez & Pwintphyu Nandar & Lily Fillwalk & Kerry J. Ard, 2024. "Defying the Food Desert, Food Swamp, and Supermarket Redlining Stereotypes in Detroit: Comparing the Distribution of Food Outlets in 2013 and 2023," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-59, August.
    21. Brandon J. Restrepo & Matthew P. Rabbitt & Christian A. Gregory, 2021. "The Effect of Unemployment on Food Spending and Adequacy: Evidence from Coronavirus‐Induced Firm Closures," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(1), pages 185-204, March.
    22. Katherine Consavage Stanley & Paige B. Harrigan & Elena L. Serrano & Vivica I. Kraak, 2021. "Applying a Multi-Dimensional Digital Food and Nutrition Literacy Model to Inform Research and Policies to Enable Adults in the U.S. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to Make Healthy Purchases ," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-25, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:2:p:814-:d:722898. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.