The num­ber of Amer­i­cans who strug­gled to put food on the table increased again last year. One in Seven Amer­i­can fam­i­lies strug­gled with hunger accord­ing to the U.S. Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture. This is the high­est per­cent­age since the USDA began the survey.

Many hunger and anti-poverty advo­cates were not sur­prised by the higher num­bers given the eco­nomic recession.

From this Asso­ci­ated Press story that we found at Ore­gon Live, we read more stats from the sur­vey as well as some quotes from the head of the USDA.

That’s 14.6 per­cent of U.S. house­holds, or about 49 mil­lion peo­ple. The num­bers are a sig­nif­i­cant increase from 2007, when 11.1 per­cent of U.S. house­holds suf­fered from what USDA clas­si­fies as “food inse­cu­rity” — not hav­ing enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle.

Agri­cul­ture Sec­re­tary Tom Vil­sack said the num­bers could be higher in 2009 because of the global eco­nomic slowdown.

“This report sug­gests its time for Amer­ica to get very seri­ous about food secu­rity and hunger,” Vil­sack told reporters dur­ing a con­fer­ence call.

The USDA said Mon­day that 5.7 per­cent of those who strug­gled for food expe­ri­enced “very low food secu­rity,” mean­ing house­hold mem­bers reduced their food intake.

The num­bers dove­tail with dire eco­nomic con­di­tions for many Amer­i­cans. And they may not take the full mea­sure of America’s cur­rent strug­gles with hunger: Vil­sack and the report’s lead author, Mark Nord with USDA’s eco­nomic research ser­vice, both empha­sized that the num­bers reflected the sit­u­a­tion in 2008 and that the economy’s con­tin­ued trou­bles in 2009 would likely mean higher num­bers next year.

The report also showed an increas­ing num­ber of chil­dren in the United States are suf­fer­ing food inse­cu­rity. In 2008, 16.7 mil­lion chil­dren were clas­si­fied as food inse­cure, 4.3 mil­lion more than in 2007.

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