One in 10 U.S. households had difficulty feeding their families last year, according to the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) annual food security report.
More than 5 million households went without food or reduced their rations due to poverty. Parent-child families continue to account for almost half of the country's food insecure households. 2.3 million families could not afford adequate nutritional food for their children in some months of 2021.
Nearly 14 million households food insecure
Food insecure households are those with "low and very low food security", i.e., those who do not have sufficient disposable income to purchase food. In 2021, 10.2% of households-about 13.5 million-had "low and very low food security." Due to lack of resources, these households were unable to provide adequate food for all their members most days of the year.
In 2021, some 5.1 million households had "very low" food security; the food intake of some household members was reduced even in some cases completely. Normal feeding patterns were disrupted due to resource constraints caused by rising costs, among other reasons.
The report reports that children in 274,000 extremely poor households did not eat for days at a time because there was no money to buy food.
The lack of money to buy food also increased from 2020 to 2021, especially for women living alone and the elderly. The latter have higher levels of food insecurity than before the Great Recession.
The latest USDA findings come with the cost of food rising 13.1% compared to last year due to near double-digit inflation. The price of cereals, bread and dairy products increased further, according to the Consumer Price Index.
Food insecurity "steadily increasing”
"Real-time data from the Census survey suggest that food hardship has steadily increased for families with children this year," said child poverty alleviation economist Whitmore Schanzenbach.
Inflation has caused millions of households to be forced to choose between: paying rent, health care, bills, child care or food. One in 4 Americans relies on federal nutrition assistance. Application rates are higher among black and Hispanic households.
Food insecurity has never fallen below 10% since 2000, peaking during the aftermath of the housing market collapse in 2007. The White House will host a conference on hunger, nutrition and health later this month.
