Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap Study
Feeding America undertook the Map the Meal Gap project, with the generous support of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and The Nielsen Company, to learn more about the face of hunger at the local community level. In August, 2011, with the support of the ConAgra Foods Foundation, child food insecurity data was added. Select your state from our interactive map below and start learning more about the residents struggling with hunger and the food banks that serve them.
Hunger Here at Home
With the U.S. and world economies in crisis, more unemployed workers, working poor families and seniors on limited incomes than ever are living at the margins of poverty and need help from the nation’s network of food banks and the charities they serve.
The number of Americans who don’t always have access to a dependable and adequate source of food jumped to 49 million in 2010, including nearly 16 million children. Nearly 1 in 4 food insecure households accessed emergency food from a food pantry one or more times during 2010. Over half (59.2%) of food insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest federal food nutrition programs, SNAP (food stamps), National School Lunch Program (NSLP) or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children ( WIC).
USDA’s Economic Research Service’s “Household Food Security Report, 2010” September 2011
Participation in the SNAP/Food Stamp Program is still on the increase. In September 2011, SNAP/Food Stamps participation rose to a record 46, million people, an increase of over 400,000 individuals from September 2010. One in seven Americans receives SNAP/Food Stamps. The number of participants in New Jersey (over 840,000) increased by more than 20 percent in the last year and more than doubled in the last 4 years.
Food Research and Action Center, New Jersey Department of Human Services, December 2011
Hunger in major cities saw increases. A survey of 29 major American cities (including Trenton, NJ) that comprise the taskforce on hunger and homelessness, found that 86% of those cities reported a rise in emergency food demand by an average of 15%. Across the survey cities, over a quarter (27%) of the people needing emergency food assistance did not receive it. None of the cities forecast a decrease in emergency food demand and nearly all of the cities (93%) expect demand for emergency food to continue to rise. Unemployment led the list of causes of hunger, followed by poverty, low wages, and high housing costs. The study was conducted September 2010 through August 2011.
U.S. Conference of Mayors, “Hunger and Homelessness Survey-”, December 2011
Over 1 million people were food insecure in New Jersey in 2009. Of those, almost half (49%) are not eligible for federal nutrition assistance. Almost 400,000 are children.
Feeding America’s Map the Meal Study, 2010
Forty-three percent of the people who receive food from the Community FoodBank of NJ are children and 10 percent are elderly. Eighteen percent of clients with children said that their children sometimes skipped meals because there was not enough money for food during the previous 12 months.
Fifty percent of clients served by the Community FoodBank of NJ report having to choose between paying for food and paying their rent or mortgage (up from 40 percent in 2006); 49 percent of clients report having to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel (up from 41 percent in 2006); 35 percent had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care (up from 31 percent in 2006).
The New Jersey Federation of Food Banks provides emergency food for an estimated 830,200 different people annually, a 45 percent increase over four years ago.
“Hunger in America 2010,” Community FoodBank of New Jersey’s Local Report
In New Jersey, more than four out of five students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch participate in the program. However, the number receiving breakfast is far lower, reflecting that fewer schools participate. Less than a third of New Jersey students eligible for free or reduced-price breakfast receive it.
In New Jersey, 82% of children in low-income families live in a household where housing costs exceed 30% of income. This is 15% higher than the overall average in the United States.
Association for Children of New Jersey, 2011
The official federal poverty level for a family of four in 2011 is $22,350 a year.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, January 2011
In 2010, 46.2 million people (15.1%) were in poverty, up from 43.6 million in 2009 – the fourth consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty. This is the largest number of people in poverty in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.
Since 2007, the year before the most recent recession, real median household income has declined 6.4 percent and is 7.1 percent below the peak that occurred in 1999.
The number of uninsured people increased to 49.9 million in 2010.
The United States Census Bureau, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010”
The unemployment rate in the United States was reported at 8.6 percent in November of 2011. From 1948 until 2010 the United States’ Unemployment Rate averaged 5.70 percent reaching an historical high of 10.80 percent in November of 1982 and a record low of 2.50 percent in May of 1953.
Bureau of Labor and Statistics, tradingeconomics.com
Updated: March 2012
