President Joe Biden and his administration released a plan to end an underrepresented yet increasingly large problem in the United States: hunger. The Biden administration plans to commit over $8 billion to decrease diet-related diseases and eliminate hunger.

“I think the administration sees the need and the struggles and is bringing people together to see how we can do something. It’s pretty significant in the sense that it’s a pretty, pretty big issue and we’re looking to do something about it as a country,” President and CEO of Feeding South Florida Paco Velez said.

In 2021, 10.2% of American households suffered from food instability. According to a fact sheet released by the White House, Biden’s plan entails enhancing nutrition and food security research, encouraging physical activity nationwide, empowering consumers with the ability to have and make healthy choices, improving food access and affordability and integrating nutrition and health into American society. 

“This is something that as a country, as citizens, as neighbors, as family, as friends, as schoolmates, as coworkers, that we have to all work towards addressing because 10% is entirely too many individuals and South Florida’s 20% is entirely too many people that don’t have access to food,” Velez said.

The plan also contains substantial changes, such as providing nutrition insecurity training to all 67,000 American Academy of Pediatrics pediatricians, as well as initiating a proposal to create and standardize front-of-package nutritional labels. Some of the most prominent companies in the U.S., including Tyson Foods, Walgreens and Google, have pledged billions of dollars to aid the government in their goal. 

However, Biden’s hunger plan is threatened in Congress due to a partisan split. Democratic congressional insiders report that Biden’s plan is unlikely to pass before the midterm elections, as it is currently stalled by Republican lawmakers.

“We unfortunately as a nation have not worked together across party lines as we used to in the past, and that’s unfortunate as so many families are struggling,” Velez said.

Biden held the first hunger conference in over 50 years; President Nixon held the last one in 1969. Nixon’s conference led to the creation and expansion of SNAP, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, as well as the National School Breakfast and Lunch Program.