Republished from
Wonky News Nerd.
Food insecurity in the United States has receded a little since 2011, but remains higher than it was before the Great Recession, according to a report released by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
According to the USDA data, roughly 14.3 percent of American households were food insecure – meaning that their access to adequate food is limited by a lack of resources – at least some time during the year in 2013.
“The change from 2012 (14.5 percent) was not statistically significant; however, the cumulative decline from 2011 (14.9 percent) was statistically significant,” the report said. Even with the slight decline since 2011, the rate of food insecurity is significantly higher than it was in the pre-recession 2006 (10.9 percent) and 2007 (11.1 percent).
While overall food insecurity seems to be slowly decreasing, the percentage of households with even more serious hunger problems is hardly budging. U.S. households deemed to have “very low food security,” stood at 5.6 percent (6.8 million households) in 2013, the USDA reported. That was essentially unchanged from 5.7 percent in both 2011 and 2012. To be in this category, “the food intake of some household members was reduced and normal eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year due to limited resources.”
Among the other findings:
- Children and adults were food insecure at times during the year in 9.9 percent of households with children. At times during the year, these 3.8 million households were unable to provide adequate, nutritious food for their children.
- In about 360,000 U.S. households, “food insecurity among children was so severe that caregivers reported that children were hungry, skipped a meal, or did not eat for a whole day because there was not enough money for food.”
- Rates of food insecurity were substantially higher than the national average for households with incomes near or below the federal poverty line, those with children headed by single women or single men, and in African-American- and Hispanic-headed households.
- Food insecurity was more common in large cities and rural areas than in suburban areas and exurban areas.
- The percentage of households with food-insecure children was essentially unchanged from 2011 and 2012 (10 percent in each year).
- The prevalence of food insecurity varied considerably by state. Over the 2011-13 time frame, percentages ranged from 8.7 percent in North Dakota to 21.2 percent in Arkansas.
- Over the 2011-13 time frame, the estimated prevalence rates of very low food security ranged from 3.1 percent in North Dakota to 8.4 percent in Arkansas.
- The typical food-secure household spent 30 percent more for food than the typical food-insecure house of the same size and composition. That includes food purchased with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits (formerly the Food Stamp Program).
"Given improvements in employment and other economic indicators, some have wondered why food security has been slow to improve," Alisha Coleman-Jensen, a social science analyst with the USDA Economic Research Service’s Food Assistance Branch and one of the authors of the study,
told Reuters.
"Our elected officials need to make ending hunger a national priority," Rev. David Beckmann, president the Washington, D.C. based anti-hunger group Bread for the World said in a statement. "It is unacceptable that 17.5 million households in this country must choose between paying for medicine, rent, daycare, or food.”