USDA monitors the food security of U.S. households—their
consistent access to enough food for active, healthy living—through
annual, nationally representative surveys. Statistics based on
the December 2002 survey indicate that 89 percent of households
were food secure throughout the year. The remaining 11 percent
were food insecure at some time during 2002. These households were
uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food for all
household members because they had insufficient money and other
resources for food. Most food-insecure households avoided hunger
by relying on a few basic foods, reducing variety in their diets,
or getting emergency food from a food pantry. But 3.8 million households,
3.5 percent of all U.S. households, were food insecure to the extent
that one or more household members were hungry at least some time
during the
year because they could not afford enough food.
What about that qualifying phrase, “at least some time
during the year?” How often were people hungry in those 3.8
million households? Was this typically a rare, one-time occurrence,
or do some U.S. households regularly face hunger? These are important
questions for policymakers who design and manage programs to fight
hunger. To answer these questions, ERS analyzed survey responses
about how frequently households faced various food-insecure conditions
during the year.
Findings include:
About a third of the households that registered hunger “at
least some time during the year” experienced the condition
rarely or occasionally—in 1 or 2 months of the year. The
remaining two-thirds experienced the condition in 3 or more months
of the year, including about one household in four in which hunger
occurred in almost every month.
On average, households that were food insecure with hunger
experienced this condition for a few days each month in 8 or
9 months of the year.
As a result of these temporal patterns, the average monthly
and daily prevalences of food insecurity with hunger were lower
than the annual rate. During the 30-day period ending in early
December 2002, 2.7 percent of U.S. households were food insecure
with hunger, compared with the annual rate of 3.5 percent. Average
daily prevalence during this period was probably between 0.5
and 0.7 percent.
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