The New York Times’ Jason DeParle reports that more households went hungry in 2008 than in any year since the Agriculture Dept. started measuring national hunger in 1995. In a roundabout tribute to the Reagan administration declaring that there are no hungry people in America, the Ag. Dept. tries to figure out how many families suffer from “food insecurity.” In 2008, they were 49 million families that were food insecure compared with 36 million in 2007.

The Obama administration is doing something about this: it has expanded the Ag. Dept’s food stamp program. However, the hunger rate rises and falls based on the job market and the Obama administration has resisted directly creating employment opportunities for Americans vulnerable to hunger. Maybe a more direct intervention into the job market is something the administration has planned after the epic debate on health care.

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