About one in 10 American households was food insecure at some point in 2021, according to USDA data released on Wednesday — a slight, but not significant, decline from 2020 and 2019, when the rate was 10.5 percent. Food security among families with children improved in 2021, with 12.5 percent of households with kids food insecure, down from 14.8 percent in 2020.
The fact that hunger rates overall did not increase despite rising food prices and economic insecurity shows that strengthening safety net programs works, said Abby J. Leibman, president & CEO of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger.
“This data proves that investing in food assistance programs helps struggling Americans,” she said in a statement. “We are profoundly grateful that the most vulnerable among us were not ignored.”
The report pointed to racial disparities in hunger rates: Black households were nearly three times as likely to have experienced food insecurity in 2021 as white households, and Latinx households were more than twice as likely.
Food insecurity among households without children and among the elderly increased in 2021. More than a quarter of single-parent households headed by women experienced food insecurity, and food insecurity rates were highest in southern states.
The numbers would have been far worse if the government hadn’t put into place a suite of policies to alleviate hunger and poverty during the pandemic, said Luis Guardia, president of the Food Research & Action Center, an anti-hunger group, in a statement. But many of these measures, such as expanded SNAP benefits, the Child Tax Credit, and waivers that made school meals free to virtually all public school students, have been discontinued or are slated to be phased out.
With the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health set for late this month, Guardia urged Congress and the Biden administration to “build on lessons learned during the pandemic and work to strengthen these critical programs as the nation continues to recover from the fallout of the pandemic.”