America starves as executive pay rockets: 50MILLION people go hungry while Wall Street fatcats take home millions

By Daniel Bates
Last updated at 6:12 PM on 16th November 2010

A record one in six American families went hungry last year because they did not have enough food, a shock survey has revealed.

Some 17.4million U.S. households - 50 million people - were classified as ‘food insecure’ which meant they regularly skipped meals even if they wanted to eat.

Others went for entire days without eating and handed round smaller portion sizes to make their meagre offerings suffice.

The news comes as it is revealed that top U.S. executives saw their pay and bonuses shoot up last year in the face of the worst recession for 80 years.

A homeless man roots through a rubbish bin in New York looking for something to eat

The highest paid bosses received an average of $1.6million (£1million) as a bonus on top of their basic remuneration, an increase of 11 per cent.

Salaries rose by just 3 per cent but that still meant the typical executive took home $7.2million (£4.4million).

The dietary figures are the highest since 1995 when the first national food security survey was conducted and will be acutely embarrassing for the United States, the world’s richest nation and the last remaining superpower.

They also shine a light on the vast numbers of hard working Americans who have lost their jobs in the recession and for the first time are having to rely on the state to make ends meet.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture study shows that in 2009, almost 50 million people, including 17 million children, were ‘food insecure’.

This marked a slight increase from the previous year when 17.1 million families had difficulty putting meals on the table.

Those in this category usually went hungry, could not afford a balanced meal and cut their portion sizes on the occasions they did have food.

As millions of Americans wonder where their next meal is coming from executives on Wall Street are enjoying bumper bonuses

A protester outside Goldman Sachs headquarters building in the financial district of New York

The situation was more grave for those classed as ‘very food insecure’, some 5.7 per cent of households, or 6.8 million people including 1 million children.

Those in this category regularly skipped meals even though they were hungry, regularly went whole days without eating and lost weight because they did not have enough food.

The knock-on effect was that more and more Americans have begun turning to government food schemes to feed themselves, the study found.

Now one in five of all Americans were signed up to one kind of federal food-assistance programmes including food stamps which attracted 34million participants.

Well paid: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison banked $68.6 million (£42.6 million) last year

‘This extended recession has placed people in circumstances where they need to rely on programmes like this,’ said Mark Nord, a researcher with the USDA's Economic Research Service and the lead author of the report.

Meanwhile, top U.S. executives saw their pay and bonuses shoot up last year in the face of the worst recession for 80 years.

The highest paid bosses received an average of $1.6 million (£1 million) as a bonus on top of their basic remuneration, an increase of 11 per cent.

Salaries rose by just 3 per cent but that still meant the typical executive took home $7.2 million (£4.4 million).

In some cases boards actually lowered the bar for what bosses needed to do to qualify for the extra money, Hay Group said.

The highest earning chief executive was Gregory Maffei, head of Liberty Media Group, which runs a string of US TV channels, who took home $87.1 million last year (£54 million), four times what he earned in 2008.

Second was Lawrence Ellison, boss of computing giant Oracle who was paid $68.6 million (£42.6 million) including $61.9 million (£38.4 million) in stock options.

Last year’s top earner was Ray Irani, head of Occidental Petroleum who came in at No.3 on the latest survey with remuneration of $52.2 million (£32.4 million).

Earlier this year in a rare shareholder revolt, the oil firm greed to slash his maximum compensation by three-quarters.

Elsewhere on the list, designer Ralph Lauren took ninth place with a bonus-fuelled $27 million (£16.7 million).

The prospect of swelling pay packets at the top are likely to enrage millions of Americans who are struggling to find a job or facing losing their home because they are unable to meet mortgage payments.

The anger will be compounded by the fact that, whilst few of the companies on the list took any of the billions the U.S. government spent in bailout money, all benefited from the stability that it created.

The Hay/Wall St Journal figures examined chief executive pay from 456 U. S. companies with revenue of at least $4 billion in their most recent fiscal year.

Total direct compensation included salary, bonuses and the awarded value of stock, options and other long-term incentives.