The Washington Post reports that 49 million people did not have dependable access to food last year. They also report,

In 2008, the report found, nearly 17 million children — more than one
in five across the United States — were living in households in which
food at times ran short, up from slightly more than 12 million
youngsters the year before. And the number of children who sometimes
were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.