told reporters that "nobody is actually starving... The hoboes, for example, are better fed than they have ever been. One hobo in New York got ten meals in one day."

But according to historians Steven Mintz and Sara McNeil, the number of cases of starvation in New York City alone had increased from 20 in 1931 to 110 in 1934.

And malnutrition was a much larger problem. One 1933 study of 514 children in New York found that more than one-third were in "poor" or "very poor" health.