Feeding America with Leftovers

This article was difficult to write. Seeing these numbers made me feel everything from anger, to sadness, to incredulity. The solution to funding the United States’ hunger problem can be solved for years with the help of just ten people, yet we allow it to continue.

To be honest, I started to write this article about how I thought it was wrong to take money from the world’s wealthiest to feed the impoverished. I didn't realize the sheer amount of money sitting in bank accounts or stocks, just growing interest. I didn't realize this much money was a realistic figure. I will eat crow here. I was so incredibly off base. Before you form your opinion, listen to the statistics. We can feed the poor without even making the rich notice the difference, and I want to find a way to distribute this.

The Problem

Before we get into our hunger problems in the US, let's talk about the same crisis in the perspective of five of the world's most underdeveloped nations.

First, in defining how this is measured, you need to know the definition of HDI. This stands for "Human Development Index." We used to look at the economy alone when it came to deeming nations as underdeveloped, but as our definition of a good life evolved, we began turning to the HDI.

The UN Development Programme created the Human Development Reports, which measure the HDI by "a long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living."

According to worldpopulationreview.com, the six most underdeveloped countries are Tuvalu, Somalia, Niger, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Chad. Please note* Tuvalu will not be included because it did not have a technical collection of statistics for the UN study, and due to imported food Tuvalu is now almost completely rid of its hunger problems. I have collected the following statistics on how many go hungry in the aforementioned nations.

• Somalia: 5.7 million
• Niger: 1.5 million
• Central African Republic: 1.6 million
• South Sudan: 7 million
• Chad: 15.5 million

Total: 31.3 million starving humans in five of the world's most underdeveloped third world nations

Why am I totaling this if this is about the United States hunger crisis?

Because a shocking 35 million of our own citizens are starving right now. That's more than the five poorest nations combined.

The Solution

Whether we like it or not, we have to get our ten (or more) wealthiest Americans on board. I crunched numbers and found this way to feed the hungry without these individuals missing anything that could take away from the needs or wants of the extremely wealthy. So, let's take a look at America's wealthiest people. This list from Forbes counts their net worth. Similarly to net pay, this is their income after taxes.

1. Jess Bezos (Amazon) net worth 177 billion

2. Elon Musk (Tesla) net worth 151 billion

3. Bill Gates (Microsoft) net worth 124 billion

4. Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook) bet worth 97 billion

5. Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway) net worth 96 billion

6. Larry Ellison (Oracle) net worth 93 billion

7. Larry Page (Google) net worth 91.5 billion

8. Sergey Brin (Google) net worth 89 billion

9. Steve Vallmer (Microsoft) net worth 68.7 billion

10. Alice Walton (Walmart) net worth 61.8 billion

Our grand total here is an astounding 1.049 trillion US Dollars.

$1,049,000,000,000

This figure looks unreal when typed out. It's more than any of us who read this article will make in our lifetimes combined. It's enough to give a substantial amount of money to each of America's 35 million hungry, but we have to realize even billionaires have bills. If we cut this net worth in half, the "poorest" billionaire in the US would still have over 30 billion dollars.

So, what can be done with half, or $524,500,000,000? Are you ready to do some math?

It costs about $3000 to feed a single person for a year, per balancingeverything.com (2400-4000).

Going back to our 1/2 net worth theory figure of $524.5 billion, we'll start by dividing this by each of our 35 million starving Americans.

This gives each of them $14,985 apiece. Divide the $14,985 by the $3,000 (approximately) that it takes to feed one person for a year.

This leaves us with each of those 35 million people being fed for 4.995 years.

Keep in mind, these figures only consider ten billionaires in the US, and there are plenty more. This also leaves them with 30-88 billion dollars to pay their bills. Can you imagine what could be done if we implemented this and they agreed as billionaires who would still have unimaginable wealth even after?

This is not to say that billionaires are all greedy people. Some, like Bill Gates, donate sizeable portions of income every year. However, what if we focused on setting up one problem at a time to overcome? If we did this now and solved hunger for five years, we could go on next year to a new problem, then come back to this five years from now with five years' worth of other causes possibly solved too.

You may be wondering why I'm writing this if programs exist to feed the poor, but the truth is that we would not have 35 million Americans going hungry if the programs like they were supposed to. Food Stamps are very helpful, but some are just over the cusp of the income limits or don't meet qualifications. As far as charity organizations, some often have leaders who make millions allow their organizations to lose sight of their original goal to help people. I encourage you to do research on this subject and other charitable organizations' funding breakdowns.

But never fear, billionaires, for you can claim up to 100% of your adjusted gross income as itemized deductions on "cash deductions on qualifying charities" as of 2020.