Food Insecurity in the U.S.

If you are gathering with family and friends on Thanksgiving, there is no need to look further than your full plate to find a reason to be thankful. 1 in 10 households in the U.S. experienced food insecurity in 2021. If you have visited a grocery store in the past year, you know that food prices are way up. Higher prices for food and other commodities promise to force more U.S. households into a state of food insecurity in 2022 and 2023.

10.2% of U.S. households were food insecure at some point in 2021, according to the “Household Food Security in the United States in 2021” report published in September by the United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. This means that 13.5 million U.S. households, or 33.8 million people, “were uncertain of having or unable to acquire enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resource for food.” Households with low food security cope by eating less varied diets, participating in food assistance programs, or getting food from community food pantries.

Even more concerning, 3.8% of U.S. households experienced “very low food security” in 2021. That’s 5.1 million households in which “normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.”

Children are at a heightened risk of food insecurity in the U.S. 12.5% of all households with children experienced food insecurity in 2021. Food insecurity only impacted adults in about half of these households. In the other half of households with children present, some 5.0 million children in the U.S. experienced food insecurity directly. Even more tragic, 521,000 kids in the U.S. lived in households where children experienced very low food security. In other words, more than half a million kids in the U.S. had their normal eating patterns and food intake disrupted at some point in the year. Food insecurity was especially pronounced in households with children that are headed by a single mother, which experienced a food insecurity rate of 24.3% in 2021.

Food insecurity is higher in the South than in other regions of the U.S., but Georgia is close to the national average. 9.9% of Georgian households experienced food insecurity and 3.9% experienced very low food security based on Department of Agriculture data from 2019-2021.

Food insecurity promises to be on the rise in 2022 and 2023.

Prices for food and other essentials continue to increase due to inflation. Though there are signs that inflation may be cooling, the cost of food continues to increase. According to the October 2022 Consumer Price Index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food prices in the U.S. were up 10.9% in October 2022 compared to a year earlier. Eggs are 43% more expensive than they were a year ago. Chicken is up 14.5%. Flour is up 24.6%. Dairy products are 15.5% higher compared to this time last year. These increasing food costs will exacerbate food insecurity. Higher costs at the cash register force many households to choose less nutritious options or skip meals altogether.

If you are interested in addressing hunger in our community, consider getting involved with or donate to Manna House of Brunswick, FaithWorks’ Sparrow’s Nest, or America’s Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia. Meanwhile, Blessings in a Backpack works to prevent hunger among children. These organizations mitigate food insecurity that already exists in our community. On a larger scale, broad institutional reforms are needed to address the root causes of hunger, including lifting families out of poverty, getting capable folks into jobs that pay a living wage, and addressing social problems in the family.

Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is interim chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.