Ten Surprising Stats About Hunger in American Homes

To be classified as food secure, the United States Department of Agriculture posits that a household must “have consistent, dependable access to enough food for active, healthy living”.

Conversely, households without this guarantee face various levels of food insecurity. USDA monitors the extent and severity of food insecurity in the U.S. A report published in 2019 by the agency analyzed several facts about food insecurity in the United States.

Here are ten quick but surprising takeaways from that report.

1. About 20% of American families that are food insecure at any time during the year experienced the associated conditions rarely or occasionally—in only 1 or 2 months of the year.

2. About a quarter of food-insecure families and one-third of those with very low food security experienced occasional or episodic food shortages which occurred nearly every month.

3. On an average level, American families that lacked food were actually food insecure for a combined time period of over six months.

4. Most households that had very low food security at some time during a month experienced occasional or episodic food shortages in 1 to 7 days of the month.

5. The omission of homeless families and individuals from these daily statistics biases the statistics downward, and the bias maybe substantial relative to the estimates, especially for the most severe conditions.

6. When Food Insecurity Occurs in U.S. Households, it Is usually recurrent but necessarily a constant phenomenon as there are several intervention strategies that can break the continuity of hunger.

7. 97 percent reported that an adult had cut the size of meals or skipped meals because there was not enough money for food; 89 percent reported that this had occurred in 3 or more months.

8. 96 percent reported that they had eaten less than they felt they should because there was not enough money for food.

9. 69 percent reported that they had been hungry but did not eat because they could not afford enough food.

10. 48 percent reported having lost weight because they did not have enough money for food and 36 percent reported that an adult did not eat for a whole day because there was not enough money for food.