There are lots of hungry people in Texas

Wow.

Millions of Texans are at risk of going hungry, and the resources available to many low-income families aren’t enough, according to new data released [Wednesday] by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Texas Food Bank Network.

The report, which is based on survey data from 2008 to 2010, showed Texas as among the most troubled states in the nation for hunger.

Nearly 19 percent of Texas households reported barely having enough food, and about 7 percent reported sometimes having too little to eat. Texas ranked 2nd in the nation in food insecure households, trailing only Mississippi. The percentage of Texas households facing hunger has also climbed from the 14.8 percent three-year averag between 2006 and 2008, said J.C. Dwyer, State Policy Director at the Texas Food Bank Network.

The U.S. average was 14.6 percent.

“Hunger is a huge problem in Texas, and getting worse,” Dwyer said.

The Texas Food Bank Network partnered with Baylor University’s Texas Hunger Initiative and First Choice Power to produce a report entitled “Hunger by the Numbers: A Blueprint for Ending Hunger in Texas,” which the Food Bank Network said was the first such report to include detailed statistics for each of Texas’ 254 counties.

You can find a copy of the report here. Obviously, the time frame coincides with the economic downtown, so one would expect an increase in many kinds of problems, but still. One out of five people going hungry, many of whom are children, is appalling. Too bad this didn’t come up at the Republican Presidential candidates’ debate, not that any of them would have had any solutions for it.

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