WASHINGTON — A recently enacted income supplement for low-ranking U.S. troops, put in place primarily to alleviate food insecurity in the ranks, will help fewer than 1% of the estimated scores of thousands of hungry U.S. military families, according to Pentagon figures.
That statistic, which has not been previously reported, suggests Congress has a lot more work to do to ensure service members who put their lives on the line for their country don’t also have to sacrifice food for themselves and their families, experts and some lawmakers said.
Fully 24% of active-duty service members recently experienced “low food security,” meaning they sometimes lacked quality meals, according to the latest Pentagon survey of troops in late 2020 and early 2021 — before the recent inflation surge. Of those, 10% periodically experienced “very low food security,” meaning they sometimes ate less at mealtime, missed meals entirely or lost weight due to inadequate food intake in the previous year.
