There is an ongoing hunger crisis in America.

Full stop.

According to a report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2022, as many as 44.2 million people lived in households that had difficulty getting enough food to feed everyone an increase from 33.8 million the year prior and that figure included more than 13 million children facing food insecurity.

When the report was released, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement : These numbers are more than statistics. They paint a picture of just how many Americans faced the heartbreaking challenge last year of struggling to meet a basic need for themselves and their children.

Much of the fault lay with inflation notably rising costs at the grocery store and the end of many pandemic-era programs that helped offset these woes.

The problem has not gotten any better. I dont need a report to confirm it. I can see it with my own eyes. When I walk around parts of Koreatown in Los Angeles or when I drive through the city on a Saturday morning and see long lines of people in need of free food.

Or when I learned that the CEO of Kellogg went on national TV and gleefully shared the companys strategy to meet the customer where they are and advertise cereal for dinner with new Tony the Tiger ads.

The cereal category has always been quite affordable, and it tends to be a great destination when consumers are under pressure, Gary Pilnick explained on CNBCs Squawk on the Street .

We gotta meet the consumer where they are, so were advertising cereal for dinner. If you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they might otherwise do, thats going to be much more affordable.

If only those struggling could eat the rich.

Congress, useless as it may usually be, actually did something to try to directly aid children suffering from this national shame.

It arrived in the form of the U.S. Department of Agricultures new Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer program, modeled after Pandemic EBT, which helped families pay for meals using an EBT card loaded with benefits when schools, a known lifeline for tens of millions of kids , were closed to in-person learning during the COVID crisis.

The Summer EBT program will provide $120 per student to families that qualify for free and reduced-price lunch to cover the costs of groceries during the summer months.

Thanks to a government funding bill Congress passed in December 2022, the program will become permanent. The USDA says the program could potentially reduce the number of children experiencing very low food security by about one-third. More than 21 million kids will benefit once it launches in June.

The problem, though, is that so far, only 35 states, five U.S. territories, and four tribes plan to participate.

The deadline to join was the start of this year, and regrettably, more than 15 Republican governors have said that they will turn down federal money to feed low-income children .