"More than 1 million New Yorkers ask: food or rent?"

Why is this happening in the richest city in America:

Food or rent? That is the daily choice faced by about 1.2 million of New York's 8.2 million people.

Faced with that choice, mostly they pay rent and rely on emergency or charity food to survive, poverty activists say.

They have been forgotten:

Hunger is not unique to New York. More than 12 million U.S. households -- or 35 million Americans -- struggled with hunger in 2005, according to the U.S. government.

The economy is booming, we're told;but, that's only for the rich:

While the city's Wall Street bankers are due to collect nearly $24 billion in bonuses this year, more than one-fifth of New Yorkers are battling to make ends meet below the national poverty line of $10,000 a year for an individual.

New York's children are worst affected:

One quarter of New York's 1.9 million children are living in poverty, 40 percent of families with children had difficulty affording food in 2005 and one-fifth of the city's children rely on free food to survive, according to a report by the Food Bank For New York City.