Americans’ Access To Food Can Vary Widely By State

Sep 9, 2014

2 min read

America’s “food recovery” has begun, with fewer people struggling to put food on the table and fewer receiving food stamps. But these welcomed trends mask wide variation across states in people’s access to food — New Mexico and Oregon have more residents using food stamps relative to their needs than Wyoming and Utah, for example.

These trends were evident in a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It showed that the proportion of households classified as “food insecure” declined to 14.3 percent last year — its lowest level since 2007, down from its peak in 2011 of 14.9 percent.

Food insecurity is a survey-based measure, defined as the percentage of households “uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members.” The proportion of households experiencing food insecurity most acutely, classified as having “very low food security,” was essentially unchanged last year at 5.6 percent, down from a peak of 5.7 percent in 2011. Both measures of food security, however, are still much higher than pre-recession levels, which were about 11 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

In North Dakota and Virginia, though, fewer than 1 in 10 households are food insecure. The hardship is more prevalent in poorer states, such as Arkansas and Mississippi, with more than 1 in 5 households unable to adequately feed their families. And poorer states tend to have a higher number of people who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly called food stamps. This positive relationship between food insecurity and food stamp participation makes sense. States with a greater number of people going hungry are likely to have a greater number enrolled in SNAP.