A quarter of the U.S. military experienced food insecurity in recent years, more than twice the civilian rate of 10 percent, said a USDA report on Thursday. Rates were highest among active-duty personnel under the age of 25 who were members of a minority group and whose spouses were unemployed.
“The prevalence of food insecurity was 25.3 percent in the military population and 10.1 percent in the demographically equivalent civilian population in 2018 and 2020,” said the Economic Research Service. Food insecurity means lack of access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.
“Although the service members typically earn more than civilians with comparable levels of education and have more stable employment … their spouses face considerable disadvantages in the civilian labor market because of the service members’ long working hours, deployment schedules, and frequent relocation,” wrote ERS analysts Matthew Rabbitt and Matthew Beymer. “Therefore, the income of active duty households can, at times, be below that of demographically equivalent civilian households.”
The report, “Comparing food insecurity among the U.S. military and civilian adult populations,” is available here.