The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an organization containing 34 countries -- with many of them, including the United States, being among the most developed and richest nations in the world. But even these nations are not immune to poverty and hunger. Since 2007, the average percentage of OECD households with children that struggle to find enough food has climbed from 15% to 21%. Some nations have a pretty low percentage (the Nordic nations) and some do not (like Turkey, Hungary, Mexico, and Greece).
How does the United States (the richest nation in the world) fare? One would think that a nation as rich as the United States would have a very low percentage of hungry households -- but it doesn't. The United States actually ranks 6th out of the 34 nations in having the highest percentage of households struggling to feed their families (with a shameful 23%, or more than one out of every five households). And it doesn't stop there. The United States ranks 4th among the nations with the fastest growing percentage of households struggling to find enough food -- growing by 12% in the past 12 months.
This might have been justifiable in the past, when this country didn't have the wealth or adequate social structures to eliminate poverty and hunger. But that is no longer the case. The United States is not just the richest nation in the world -- it has enough money to wipe out poverty and feed all of its citizens. So why are 23% of U.S. households struggling to find enough food?
The simple answer is greed. Too many people in power (politicians, rich, corporations) have decided that poverty and hunger are not as important as excessive profits and incomes for corporations and the wealthy. They are willing to let the poor struggle to find enough food (and other essentials) to keep taxes abnormally low for the rich and the corporations. These politicians, especially the Republicans, will tell you that keeping taxes abnormally low for the rich and the corporations is good for everyone in the United States. That is an outrageous lie, and has been proven to be untrue by the failure of their "trickle-down" policy.
The truth is that we could eliminate poverty and hunger in this country. We just lack the morality and/or political courage to do so. That may seem strange in a country that prides itself on being a "christian" nation, but it is true -- and that should shame all Americans.
The charts above were made from information contained in surveys of the 34 OECD nations by the Gallup Poll.
