Social justice news
December 2006

CRS and USCCB add Advent material to their Catholic Campaign Against Global Poverty
British bishops plan Advent in Bethlehem
Humanitarian groups appeal for $3.9 billion in 2007
More dying in Zimbabwe than Darfur says bishop
Record 2005 incarceration numbers make U.S. world's leading jailer
Starbucks and Ethiopia meet over coffee trademarks
UN report: Iraq is hemorrhaging—people
USCCB calls for alternative course in Iraq
USCCB: Secure peace and democracy in Lebanon
USDA drops "hunger" from its annual report

USDA drops "hunger" from its annual report
For the first time the use of the word “hunger” was omitted in the USDA’s annual measure of hunger in the U.S., Household Food Security in the United States, 2005. While the number of people living in households struggling to put food on the table declined by 3 million (from 38 million in 2004 to 35 million in 2005) after rising for five straight years, more than 10 million people live with what the report now calls “very low food security” or what had commonly been called "hunger."

“We should not hide the word hunger in our discussions of this problem because we cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens,” said Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World . “The proposal to remove the word hunger from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and their families.”

Among the findings of the 2005 report are:

10.8 million people are in the worst category, “very low food security,” up from 10.7 million in 2004.
24 million people with low food security, down from 27.5 million in 2004.
New Mexico is the state with the highest rate of food insecurity, with 16.8 percent of households followed by Mississippi with 16.5 percent and Texas with 16 per cent.
Black (22.4 per cent) and Hispanic (17.9 per cent) households have the highest prevalence of food insecurity in terms of race/ethnicity.
Single female head of households (30.8 per cent) had the highest prevalence of food insecurity in terms of household composition.

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