African-Americans More Likely to Suffer from Hunger and Poverty

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Bread for the World Analysis

WHAT:
Telephone Interviews for radio stations, 5-8 minutes each.

WHO:
Derrick Boykin, northeast regional organizer for Bread for the World, one of the country’s largest anti-hunger, anti-poverty organizations. Boykin will discuss the analysis and how the community can get involved in efforts to end hunger.  Boykin is also an associate minister at Walker Memorial Baptist Church in the South Bronx, NY.

WHEN:
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011, from 7:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m. EDT.

HOW:
Contact Jacqueline Lara to book an interview window: (240) 305-2133 or jlara@mpactpr.com.

WHY:
One in four African-American households struggles to put food on the table, compared to about one in seven U.S. households overall.  Although the economic recession led to higher poverty rates in 2009–the latest full year for which data is available—safety net programs such as SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly food stamps) helped keep food insecurity rates near their 2008 levels. 

“For one of the world’s wealthiest nations, food insecurity is alarmingly high, but the figures could have been a lot worse if we didn’t have safety-net programs keeping more people from going hungry,” said Derrick Boykin, northeast regional organizer for Bread for the World.   

African-Americans had been suffering from “recession-like” conditions long before the economic recession rocked the nation. This weaker starting point laid the groundwork for the soaring African-American poverty rate during the recession. In 2009, it reached 25.8 percent, far exceeding the overall national poverty rate of 14.3 percent.

In each of the 10 states with the highest poverty rates, the African-American poverty rate was significantly higher than the overall poverty rate.  In states like Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Alabama, and Louisiana, and in the District of Columbia, African-American poverty rates were nearly double the overall poverty rates.

The analysis also examines the correlation between increased hunger and poverty in the African-American community and decreased economic opportunity.

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