Report: Food Insecurity in the US

Posted on March 25, 2011 by townsend

• Next meal elusive for hundreds of thousands of needy in D.C. area, By Annie Gowan, March 24, 2011, Washington Post: “More than 400,000 Washington area residents experienced periods of hunger and empty cupboards during the recession, including tens of thousands living in some of the country’s most affluent counties, according to a new study released Thursday. The study, “Map the Meal Gap,” used Agriculture Department, 2010 Census and unemployment data for a sweeping county-by-county portrait of hunger in America, from unemployed timber workers in the South to more than 1.7 million residents in Los Angeles with high unemployment and housing costs…”
• Millions of Americans can’t always afford food, By Kim Carollo, March 24, 2011, ABC News: “While many people may not think much about grabbing a bite to eat, for millions of Americans, it’s been a lot harder. A new report shows about 50 million people aren’t always sure how they’re going to afford their next meal. According to the Map the Meal Gap report by the hunger relief charity Feeding America, about 15 percent of American households experienced “food insecurity” at some time during 2009, or believed they didn’t have enough or couldn’t get enough money for food. The report uses food insecurity data gathered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The report provides food insecurity rates for every county and congressional district in the country and also analyzes each county’s population to determine whether people are eligible for federal nutrition assistance programs…”
• Study: Tens of thousands have too little food, By Julie Wurth, March 24, 2011, Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette: “A new national hunger study says 79,000 people in East Central Illinois don’t have enough to eat — and more than half of them may not qualify for federal food assistance. About 15.5 percent of the 508,000 people in the 14-county region served by the Eastern Illinois Foodbank are classified as ‘food insecure,’ unable to get enough food on a regular basis, according to a study released Thursday by Feeding America, a national hunger-relief organization. The study, called “Map the Meal Gap,” provides numbers for the first time about food insecurity for each county and congressional district. Previously, that data was only available on a state-by-state basis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, officials said…”
• Study: Minnesotans miss 100 million meals each year, By Julie Siple, March 25, 2011, Minnesota Public Radio: “A study released this week by the hunger relief organization Feeding America estimates that Minnesotans struggling with hunger collectively miss almost 100 million meals each year. The study says, nationwide, hungry people would need $21.3 billion to fill the gap in their food budgets. Work in Minnesota inspired the study. Rob Zeaske and his colleagues at Second Harvest Heartland food bank were looking for a better way to understand who needs help. ‘Traditionally we’ve measured hunger by who comes in for help, by who comes into a food shelf or who comes into a soup kitchen,’ Zeaske said. ‘The attempt was – how do we make a better estimate of who’s out there needing assistance, and how badly, but might not be getting help?’ Feeding America ran with that idea. The national study they released Thursday does two things that hadn’t been done before. It estimates the number of people struggling with hunger in each U.S. county. And it puts a number on how many meals people are missing…”