Poverty 101: What We Mean When We Talk About Hunger

What is Hunger?

Hunger is an interesting word. Everyone knows what it’s like to be hungry. Stomachs rumble. Patience gets short. People get irritable when they’re hungry and can even find it hard to think straight. To make those symptoms go away and feel normal, we eat something. (Remember all those commercials for Snickers bars!)

We often think of hunger as a temporary sensation. For the nearly 50 million Americans, including 1 in 5 children, facing food insecurity, it’s a little bit different. For neighbors facing food insecurity, hunger is a symptom of the larger issues of poverty and inequality. 

Why are people hungry?

Feeding America reports that 72% of the households served by its affiliated food banks live at or below the federal poverty line. This means they have a median household income of $9,175 or less. The plain fact is that they don’t have enough money to put food on the table consistently. As it turns out, food insecurity is not so much a food problem as it is a math problem. For millions of Americans, the numbers don’t add up. Food insecurity is a symptom of economic insecurity. It looks like a food problem on the surface, but food insecurity is simply how upstream problems manifest downstream. 

Unemployment is a major factor. Feeding America found 54% of households served had at least 1 person employed in the previous year. Working people are struggling. A major cause of this is income inequality. The current Federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. The last increase to Federal minimum wage was in 2009. California’s minimum wage was just increased to $16.90 per hour on January 1, 2026. While this helps people in California, that amount is still difficult to live on. And it’s not that folks aren’t working hard. Many individuals are working two or three jobs just to try and make ends meet. It doesn’t help that between 1975 - 2023, labor wages remained flat while worker productivity shot through the roof. In fact, in that time period, an estimated $79 trillion was lost in worker wages.

There are other factors that also contribute to hunger. The median student loan debt is now $37,575 (more than double since 2007). Housing and healthcare costs have also skyrocketed. The current estimate is that a person would need to make $25.82 per hour to afford a 2-bedroom apartment, which is 3 times the Federal minimum wage. There is no state, metropolitan area, or county in the U.S. where a full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage, or the prevailing state or local minimum wage, can afford a modest two-bedroom rental home at Fair Market Rent. The average worker also pays $562 per month for unsubsidized healthcare coverage. 

The cost of utilities, gas, and just about every other daily need are also going up. For households forced to choose between eating and paying bills, each dollar counts. 

Who’s Hungry?

Hunger affects every community in the United States, even our relatively affluent Tri-Valley cities of Livermore, Dublin, and Pleasanton. Some demographic groups are more vulnerable than others. African Americans are twice as likely to be food insecure than white, non-Hispanic homes. One in four veterans are facing food insecurity. Senior citizens are the fastest growing food insecure population. There is also a shocking number of college students facing hunger. 

The Impact of Hunger

Impacts of hunger are wide-ranging. Food insecurity among kids has been linked to poor academic performance. Just under half of students from low-income households say hunger impacts their school day and 3 out of 4 teachers say they have recognized when students regularly come to school hungry. 

Food insecurity is also connected to a list of health problems. People living with hunger are almost three times more likely to be in poor health and much more susceptible to chronic conditions like diabetes. For people who often pay healthcare costs out of pocket, medical issues are a leading cause of deepening poverty. 

What Can You Do to Help 

There is a lot of work to be done to address and eliminate the root causes of food insecurity. While that work is being done, we must simultaneously create pathways for local communities to rally to support families who are facing food insecurity right now. Places like Open Heart Kitchen can do this at scale to help temporarily fill the gap. 

Every time an individual or family does not have to worry about the availability of nutritious food is another opportunity for them to shift those savings to things like utilities, childcare, and healthcare. People in the Tri-Valley facing hunger can always find help at Open Heart Kitchen. But we can’t do it without the Tri-Valley community. Please consider donating to Open Heart Kitchen.

Together, we can fight hunger and build a future where everyone has access to nutritious food and a sense of hope. Contact us now to learn more about how you can get involved and make a lasting difference.