Editor's Pick 2013: Best of Charts of Note

Knowing how often and how long households are food insecure is important for understanding the extent and character of food insecurity and for maximizing the effectiveness of programs aimed at alleviating it. Food-insecure households are those that are unable, at times during the year, to acquire adequate food because they lack sufficient money and other resources. Two studies commissioned by ERS found spells of food insecurity to be generally of short duration. For example, one study found that half of households that were food insecure at some time during the 5-year study period experienced the condition in just a single year and only 6 percent were food insecure in all 5 years. However, the fact that households move in and out of food insecurity also means that a considerably larger number of households are exposed to food insecurity at some time over a period of several years than are food insecure in any single year. The statistics for this chart are from “Food Insecurity in U.S. Households Rarely Persists Over Many Years” in the June 2013 issue of ERS’s Amber Waves magazine. Originally published on Monday, June 17, 2013.

Knowing how often and how long households are food insecure is important for understanding the extent and character of food insecurity and for maximizing the effectiveness of programs aimed at alleviating it. Food-insecure households are those that are unable, at times during the year, to acquire adequate food because they lack sufficient money and other resources. Two studies commissioned by ERS found spells of food insecurity to be generally of short duration. For example, one study found that half of households that were food insecure at some time during the 5-year study period experienced the condition in just a single year and only 6 percent were food insecure in all 5 years. However, the fact that households move in and out of food insecurity also means that a considerably larger number of households are exposed to food insecurity at some time over a period of several years than are food insecure in any single year. The statistics for this chart are from “Food Insecurity in U.S. Households Rarely Persists Over Many Years” in the June 2013 issue of ERS’s Amber Waves magazine. Originally published on Monday, June 17, 2013.

In 2009, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Congress temporarily increased the maximum benefit levels of USDA?s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by 13.6 percent, with the intention that, over time, rising food prices would eliminate the ARRA increase. By 2011, inflation had cut the value of the ARRA increase by about half and the percentage of SNAP-recipient households with very low food security had increased to 13.8 percent from 12.1 percent in 2009. Very low food security is characterized by reduced food intake and disrupted eating patterns. Low-income non-SNAP households did not experience worsening food security during this time. ERS analyses of the pre- and post-ARRA periods suggest that future increases in the maximum SNAP benefit of 10 percent would reduce the number of SNAP households with very low food security by about 22 percent, and reducing the maximum benefit by 10 percent would increase that number by about 29 percent. This chart appears in Effects of the Decline in the Real Value of SNAP Benefits from 2009 to 2011, ERR-151, August 2013. Originally published on Friday, August 16, 2013.