More than 607,000 Ohio households -- 13.3 percent -- struggled to feed themselves last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

That's the highest rate of "food insecurity" since the federal government started to survey hunger in 1995. It also mirrors Ohio's 13.1 percent poverty rate.

Overall, Ohio ranked 12th in the nation -- tied with Alabama -- in percentage of households having trouble finding enough to eat in the three-year period from 2006 to 2008.

Nationwide, an unprecedented 17 million households -- 14.6 percent -- were food insecure last year. That's also an all-time high.

President Obama called the report 10 days before Thanksgiving "unsettling."

"It is particularly troubling that there were more than 500,000 families in which a child experienced hunger multiple times over the course of the year," he said in a statement.

Obama said his administration is taking steps to fix the problem, starting with promoting job growth.

Mary Lou Langenhop, president and chief executive officer of the Children's Hunger Alliance, said the report shows the beginning of the recession in Ohio.

"The jump is a reflection of the economy," she said.

"We are seeing this in increases in families applying for free and reduced-price lunches; we are seeing this in significant increases in kids that showed up at summer feeding sites; we're seeing it in the number of people who are applying for food stamps; and the number of people showing anywhere food is available."

According to the report, those forced to skip meals, scale back and go to bed hungry in the past three years -- a subset identified as having "very low food security" -- spiked by more than a third in Ohio.

In 2006-08, 5.2 percent of Ohio households were considered to have very low food security, up from 3.8 percent in 2005-07. Nationwide, the rate was 5.7 percent, up from 4.1 percent in 2007.

Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks, predicted that the numbers will be worse next year when more of the impact of the recession is reflected.

Noting that the report reflects conditions through 2008, she said, "Since then, the economy has significantly weakened and there are likely many more people struggling with hunger than this report states."

To cope, families are skipping meals, eating less-diverse foods, seeking food stamps and other assistance and visiting food pantries.

Hamler-Fugitt said higher demand and limited financial support has caused pantries, like those her group serves, to stretch their supplies and lighten the bags of food they give out.

Today in Washington, Sen. Sherrod Brown will focus on the report's findings at a Senate hearing examining childhood nutrition programs. The Ohio Democrat, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee's hunger and nutrition subcommittee, says one way to address the problem is to ensure that more eligible students are enrolled for free and reduced-price school lunches.

Earlier this year, Brown introduced a bill that would mandate that children enrolled in Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program automatically be added to school meal programs.

That would add about 150,000 Ohio students, among about 3.5 million nationwide, to the program at a cost of $1.5 billion to $2 billion over five years, according to Brown's office.

While 700,000 Ohio children are enrolled, about 524,000 of them received meals during the school year, according to Ohio Department of Education data cited earlier this year by Brown's office.

Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief Jonathan Riskind contributed to this story.

ccandisky@dispatch.com