Roughly 14.7% of households were "food insecure" in 2009, meaning that 17.4 million households -45 million people- had difficulty feeding one or more members for financial reasons. This Monday the Department of Agriculture announced that food insecurity rate is actually the highest it's been since the government started tracking it 15 years ago. The research was conducted by the the Census Bureau and reached 46,000 households.
"People responded to questions such as their ability to afford balanced meals, whether they adjusted the size of meals due to lack of money, or if they ever went hungry due to a lack of financial resources."