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USDA: Missouri Hunger Is On The Rise

Gaby Mora
/
Flickr
One in six Missouri households struggled with hunger last year.

Food insecurity continues to rise in Missouri and it is exacerbating the hunger crisis in the Show Me State, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Missouri and Tennessee are tied for the second-highest food insecurity growth rate in the nation, after Nevada.

The study showed that 16.9 percent -- or one in six -- Missouri households struggled with hunger last year. The national average for the rate of food insecurity is around 14 percent.

Food insecurity means that a household has budget issues so severe that both adults and children have to frequently skip meals.

Jeanette Mott Oxford, executive director of the Missouri Association for Social Welfare, thinks various reasons explain this crisis like state policies that have not been updated in a long time.

For example, Oxford said Missouri has not changed its income tax table since 1931, and she argues this causes people with very low incomes to pay a high tax rate.

“Our top tax bracket in Missouri starts at $9,000 a year of taxable income. Since we haven’t modernized our tax table that means we have created a very regressive tax system that hurts low wage workers,” Oxford said.

She added the tax table is set up backwards so that the people who pay the highest amount, comparing to their ability to pay, are the people who have low wage jobs.

Oxford also mentioned the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program as one of those other programs that needs updating. 

“There are a number of things that Missouri has done policy-wise that I think increase our unemployment rate and increase the desperation of families that are very poor in our state,” Oxford said.

Oxford thinks there are a number of things that can be done to stop this trend. She said increasing the money provided through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as Food Stamps, would be a good start, as well as getting more children enrolled in school breakfasts and lunches.

“There are some things that we can do with the programs that exist to make them better utilized and also to make them stronger for the future,” Oxford said. She also encourages people to donate to local social services agencies and food pantries to help with the issue.

According to the report, about 85.7 percent of American households were food secure during the year 2013 but the 14.3 remaining percent were food insecure at least some parts of the year, with 5.6 percent of them with very low food security. In Missouri 8.1 percent of households that are facing hunger were in that “very low” category.

Marine Perot was a KRCU reporter for KRCU in 2014.