I’m already kind of annoyed with my own OP because it’s going to prove too nebulous to nail down, but:
When is or likely would have been the last time someone in the U.S. (better, some substantial number of persons) who was/were not: elderly and homebound, deranged, an abused/abandoned child, a lost hiker – died from simply not being able to find/buy/afford sufficient food?
There was that kid in Alaska that spawned a recent movie
http://www.lariat.org/AtTheMovies/new/intowild.html
Great Depression?
For those who have read it, remember the end of the Grapes of Wrath? It’s obviously symbolic as much as anything, but still.
The daughter who has recently given birth nurses a starving man.
There is an excellent book called “Poverty In America” by Catherine Reef, it is an excellent history of poverty in America from the time Jamestown was founded till the 80s.
The Great Depression was the first revolutionary change in poverty. In fact some areas of Appalachia were SO poor that after the New Deal programs came in their standard of living rose.
But it was WWII that really brought the change. It was the first time large scale rationing was in nationwide effect and what it did was twofold. First of all it brought mass employment at good rates which rose poor people. But and this is the key, it also required RICH people to use coupons. So no longer could rich people just demand and get things. If you had to use a ration book you could only have as much meat as a poor person, who now because of the war, was working and not so poor.
Sure there was a black market but because WWII also brought a lot of patriotism, rich people were inclined NOT to use it, cause if it got out you had meat and shouldn’t have it, your business would suffer, cause no one would patronize a traitor. So while certainly there was a black market, the patriotic feelings of WWII limited it.
By 1960 poverty was reduced to pretty much nothing, but now it was effectively hidden. Cheap thrift store clothes and welfare allowed people to present a respectable appearence. So whereas before they starved, now they were malnurished.
Starvation still exists in the USA but it is mostly directed toward, drug addicts, alcoholics and mentally ill people who are homeless or at older or young people who have no ability to choose their food sources.
We had this very question here a few years ago. It basically turned into brainstorming how you would go about starving yourself in the U.S. Unless you are mental or physically disabled or lost in the wilderness, it would be practically impossible. There are too many sources of food. Family, friends, emergency rooms, food pantries, churches, and simple begging easily provide enough to keep a person alive. I don’t know when all of these became a sufficient safety net but it was very long ago when someone couldn’t find some source of reliable food. People during the Great Depression sometimes did odd jobs on farms just to get to eat but I don’t know how common that really was. There is the old saying “putting food on the table” but it sounds ridiculous today and I don’t know when it was meant to be taken literally.
I’m starving right now. I should go make a sandwich. 
I think he comes under “lost hiker,” ruled out in the OP.