Progress against hunger.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Earlier this decade, Oregon's status as the state with the worst hunger problem in the country was a source of shame: Hunger is a mark of fundamental social failure. But now Oregon leads the nation in another way. It has made more progress in the fight against hunger than any other state.

The problem is still severe, but there's cause to temper embarrassment with pride.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture measures hunger in two ways. One is food insecurity, which is defined as occurring when a household has worries about being able to afford food. The other is food insecurity with hunger, which occurs when members of a household actually go without meals. Oregon has made significant progress by both measures, according to a report released last week by the USDA's Economic Research Service.

In 2002-04, the department reported, 11.9 percent of Oregon households reported being food insecure. That's down 1.8 percentage points from 1999-2001, and 2.3 percentage points from 1996-98. The latest figures show 3.8 percent of Oregon households suffering actual hunger, down 2 percentage points from 1999-2001 and 2.2 percentage points from 1996-98. Only six states have had statistically significant declines in food insecurity since 1999-2001, and Oregon was one of them. Oregon was the only state with a statistically significant decline in the prevalence of food insecurity with hunger.

Because of these declines, Oregon is now tied with Georgia and Michigan for 17th place on the list of states with the highest percentage of people who occasionally go without meals. Oregon's percentage is still twice as high as Delaware's, but the numbers are moving in the right direction, and they're moving quickly.

State officials credit Oregon's success to an aggressive campaign by public and private agencies to ensure that qualified Oregonians receive food stamps. Oregon now has the nation's highest percentage of eligible people participating in the program. This progress comes at a time when Congress is considering a $3 billion reduction in the food stamp budget, which would cut support to an estimated 300,000 Americans.

Hunger in Oregon, and America, is usually caused not by a lack of food, but by a lack of money - after paying bills for housing, utilities, transportation, health care and other expenses, families find they have little left for groceries. Food stamps address this problem by giving qualified households a form of assistance that can be spent only on food. Congress should not cut this lifeline, particularly after Oregon has shown how effective it can be in ameliorating what had become a mark of shame.