Welcome to the Hungry ’20s: Food Insecurity Plagues Capitalist America

Eating nothing but rice and beans for a week straight and PB&J the next week. Standing in line at the food bank, where you are allowed one “meat” item, one loaf of bread, and one gallon of milk, all of which were already spoiled before you grabbed them off the shelf. Not eating dinner, so that your child can eat tonight. Chances are, if you haven’t already experienced these things, someone close to you has. These are the conditions of life for millions of working-class people in this country every day: conditions of food insecurity.

In the third decade of the 21st century, the richest country on earth cannot end hunger. Under capitalism, the “free market” dictates who gets enough to eat and who doesn’t. Efforts by the state, charities, and mutual-aid groups to “fill the gaps” are a mere drop in the bucket. Hunger is endemic to the capitalist system and will only be solved under a socialist planned economy.

Hunger amidst plenty

Let’s start with the facts. In the summer of 2022, a survey by the Census Bureau revealed that 11.9% of households experienced “food insufficiency.” This means that for tens of millions, “there was sometimes or often not enough to eat in their household in the last seven days.” This is the largest number since December of 2020, when the pandemic was still raging.

Meanwhile, the Urban Institute reports that more than one in five households experienced “food insecurity,” a term used by the US Department of Agriculture to encompass the broader experience of this problem, such as needing to cut out balanced meals from one’s diet. Regardless of how it’s measured, food insecurity exists on a mass scale in the US, and it is the worst it has been since the height of the pandemic.

Given that the market cannot guarantee workers employment and adequate wages, millions are forced to rely on “benevolent” institutions to supplement their food budgets. The main “safety nets” to deal with hunger are the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and food banks run by private charities.

SNAP was originally known as the Food Stamp program. It came into being in 1964, during the postwar boom. During this exceptional period, US capitalism had some “fat” to burn, and the state was able to step in and redistribute some crumbs from the capitalists’ table. Since the end of the boom in the 1970s, however, we have entered a period of protracted crisis of the system, which has seen relentless cuts, “means testing,” and other restrictions on access to SNAP.

SNAP itself was a major compromise from the beginning. The government funnels money to retail corporations and agro-monopolies, so that the poorest workers may consume a portion of their products. At the same time, the existence of the program allows other capitalists to pay starvation wages, since they know their workers will be able to supplement their food budgets with SNAP benefits. All this is done to protect the profits of the corporations. Starting as a compromise, SNAP is on its way towards further cuts and rollbacks, carried out by both capitalist political parties. This is the general trend of reforms under capitalism.

One in 10 workers lives in a household that receives SNAP. The program has a number of work-based eligibility criteria, which keep the “undeserving” hungry out. The insufficient resources provided by SNAP to those who do receive it—and the lack of SNAP benefits for many more—means that millions must rely on food banks. More than 15% of the US population turned to food banks in 2021. Keep in mind, the statistics about “food insufficiency” mean that even with this widespread usage of food banks, many basic needs go unmet.

Inflation is exacerbating the problem. The trillions of dollars pumped into the economy during the coronavirus pandemic contributed to skyrocketing prices. Chaos in supply chains drove prices higher, as it took longer to produce and transport commodities. Added to this are the disruptions of the Ukraine war and the effects of climate change on crops and livestock. Higher fuel and transportation costs, combined with labor-supply shortages compounded things further. For good measure, the agro-monopolies have taken advantage of the tumult to engage in price gouging. Higher food prices also mean fewer people are donating to food banks, putting them in a tight bind. While over 80% of food pantries surveyed by Feeding America last summer reported steady or increasing need, 73% said food donations were down in the preceding spring months.

Recent cuts to government assistance have likewise made it more difficult for people to feed themselves. At the end of 2021, the government ended enhanced unemployment and stimulus checks, along with enhanced monthly child tax credit payments. Further amplifying the issue, in March of this year, the federal government ended its pandemic-era SNAP “emergency allotments,” forcing millions off a program that had kept them from starvation. All of this means more needs go unmet as food banks are overwhelmed by rising demand.

This is the best 21st-century capitalism can do in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. With a regime of low wages and chronic unemployment for a significant layer of the working class, hunger is hardwired into the system.

According to the US Census Bureau, 11.6% of Americans lived below the poverty line in 2021. While the latest “official” unemployment rate is a mere 3.6%, the more accurate U6 unemployment rate—which includes workers defined as “marginally attached to the labor force,” because they have not actively looked for work in the past 4 weeks—stands at 6.8%. The capitalists will only employ people or pay higher wages when absolutely necessary—and only when they can make a profit by doing so. Due to these constraints, the system cannot guarantee high wages or employment for all.

Agricultural productivity has reached such a point that more food can be produced than can be consumed. No one needs to go hungry. However, under this barbaric system, food is a commodity produced for profit to be sold on the market, not to meet human needs. Thus, a certain proportion of the population cannot afford enough food for themselves and their families and must go hungry, while many more live in anxiety over their nutrition.

Charity—or class struggle?

No amount of good-willed tinkering with the system can change these facts. Charities attempt to ameliorate the worst of the system’s ills, but end up failing even at that. Food banks serve millions, and yet, there are still millions more who are going hungry.

Marx explained that class interests are decisive at the end of the day. Charity redistributes some resources from a section of the capitalist class and a section of the working class, to a poorer section of the working class and the chronically unemployed. But as the exploitative nature of capitalism ensures that wealth continually flows back to the top, charity proves a fruitless effort to stop an inexorable process. It is simply not profitable for the capitalists to solve poverty or hunger—they have no class interest in it.

Charity relies entirely on the good will of individuals. The only way to increase charitable contributions is through more effective “appeals,” usually moral ones. While many workers may donate some of their meager resources to food banks with the noble aim of helping others in our class, these contributions do not address the root cause of a system driven purely by profits. Additionally, workers only have so many resources to “give.” Of course, the function of the capitalists’ engagement in philanthropic activity is to deflect attention from their role as exploiters within this system. As a bonus, they get hefty tax write offs for donating. However one spins it, charities offer an individual solution to a problem that requires a collective response.

This applies all the more to “mutual aid” efforts, whereby political activists run food banks in order to “aid the poor” or “build a new society within the old.” However, if the better-financed food banks already fail to meet the needs of millions, attempting to do the same with even fewer resources makes little sense. The inevitable result of these “mutual aid” organizations is burnout, as activists find they cannot cope with the vast problems presented by the system, and can’t hope to “compete” with the big charities.

A “new society” cannot be built within the limits of the current one. “Alternative structures” such as mutual aid networks or communes, rely upon purchasing resources produced under the existing system, even if they are then donated “for free.” In this way, they are little different from traditional charities. The “mutual aid” approach ultimately relies upon the reformist illusion that we could actually meet the needs of the majority within capitalism, if only resources were distributed differently. But this ignores the ultimate cause of hunger and deprivation: production for profit instead of human need. Supporters of mutual aid attempt to sidestep the class struggle and in effect, accept the limits imposed by capitalism.

Only the organized working class can challenge the system at its roots by cutting off the flow of profits and taking democratic control over the means of production. Only then can food be produced to satisfy real needs instead of the greed of the capitalist class.

While neither charity nor mutual aid provide a solution, government regulations and programs likewise fail to meaningfully alleviate suffering. Capitalism cannot be “regulated” by the state—the system is driven by profits, within the context of the anarchic and irrational “free market.” The system inevitably goes into periodic crises, and the working class loses any gains made in the previous period. Wages are driven down, unemployment goes up, and more working-class families go hungry.

During such crises, government aid to the hungry simply cannot keep pace with the level of need. Worse, during crises, tax revenue falls and the state has fewer resources to devote to these efforts. In response, the capitalist class demands further cuts to “welfare entitlements” like SNAP. Austerity isn’t a political choice—it’s a necessity under capitalism. Reforms are whittled away for the sake of preserving profits.

Capitalism cannot guarantee a life without hunger. Reforms, charity, and other half-measures cannot stem the tide of mounting food insecurity. Only a nationalized food sector, with production directly for human need rather than profit, could ensure the wellbeing of all. As part of an democratically controlled planned economy, with significantly higher wages and full employment, food insecurity in this country could be wiped out within a few weeks. A socialist planned economy would end the anarchy of the market and significantly reduce the chance of severe supply disruptions. Without the constant cycle of crises, disruptions, and depravations threatening people’s livelihoods, millions could advance to a higher level of existence and enter the realm of genuine human freedom.