Nearly One in Four of Nation’s Households with Children Report Inability to Afford Enough Food
Source: Food Research and Action Center
Nearly one in four U.S. households with children struggled to afford enough food for themselves and their families in 2010, according to a new report released today by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). The analysis separately examines food hardship rates – the inability to afford enough food – for households with children and without children nationally and in every state, every Congressional District and 100 of the country’s largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).
FRAC’s Food Hardship in America series analyzes data that were collected by Gallup and provided to FRAC. The data were gathered as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index project, which has interviewed more than one million households since January 2008. FRAC has analyzed responses to the question: “Have there been times in the past twelve months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?”
The analysis released today shows that food hardship rates are very high both for households with children and for households without children. Nationally in 2010 the food hardship rate for households without children was 14.9 percent, and it was 23.4 percent for families with children.
When examining state data just for households without children, every state (except for one) reports food hardship rates higher than 10 percent in 2009-2010 and five states report rates of 20 percent or higher.
But, not surprisingly, given relative national poverty and hunger rates, the situation for households with children is far worse.
+ Full Report (PDF)
