In recent years the scholarly community has developed methods to measure “cost burdens,” which are the direct and indirect societal costs of adverse outcomes associated with a particular problem, practice, or illness. Such studies have examined the total cost to households, communities, businesses and government of problems such as alcohol abuse, smoking and obesity. This report is the first analysis of the total cost burden of hunger in the United States-- what it costs the American public to tolerate hunger and food insecurity in our nation. Bipartisan efforts in the 1970s led to policies that resulted in significant reductions in hunger; however, since the 1980s hunger has not only became more severe but, according to an annual measure reported by the federal government, has remained at high levels for at least the past decade. Each year around 35 million Americans live in households that do not get enough to eat.