Roughly 10% of americans were food-insecure at some point in a year (2)
(1) http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/12poverty.shtml
(2) http://webarchives.cdlib.org/sw1s17tt5t/http://ers.usda.gov/...
Yes, in India ~50% of the population doesn't have regular access to clean water or a sewage system. Yes, I'd rather be poor in the US than poor in India. But I maintain that the state of poverty in the US (and other western countries) is a far bigger failure than the state of poverty in any developing country.
Also, I can't help but link to this great post whenever talking about poverty:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/
the mac and cheese one makes me tear up every time I read it.
Consider a morbidly obese person who eats 6 cheeseburgers/day. At dinner time on the 30'th day of the month (payday is the 1'st of next month) they run out of money, and are only able to purchase 4 cheeseburgers that day. By the definition of the USDA, this person is food insecure.
Comparing poverty in the US to poverty in India is a misnomer - poor people in the US are actually richer than the rich (top 5%) in India. I say this based on both personal experience and statistics: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t...
The article by Scalzi you cite does not describe the poor in the US. I debunk it (with stats) here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713461
Their site was one of these "thinktanks" that appear to be an official government agency until you look very closely.
Not wishing to belittle the struggle of so many US families - but this isn't quite the same thing.