In just one year, the number of people in households that sometimes lacked the money for enough nutritious food rose from 36 million to 49 million ‘the highest number on record. Among them were 17 million children ‘4 million more in 2008 than in 2007. This is called food insecurity. The recession is making it worse. It is hurting children.

“It is insane, and morally bankrupt, for a nation with this much wealth to allow [hunger] to continue,” said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, at a Center for American Progress event Friday morning.

On December 9 from 10 am-12 pm, the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution will hold a forum to discuss a new paper by Rebecca M. Blank of the Brookings Institution and Mark H. Greenberg of Georgetown University and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, proposing a new poverty measure that better reflects the actual economic conditions of low-income Americans.