Number of census tracts classified low income and low access to foodstores increased in U.S. urban and rural areas from 2015 to 2019

The proximity from a person’s home to the nearest foodstore (supermarket, supercenter, or large grocery store) is one indicator of how easy it is to access a variety of healthful, affordable foods. USDA, Economic Research Service’s (ERS) Food Access Research Atlas (FARA) provides a measure of neighborhood access to healthy, affordable food for the entire Nation and allows users to map low-income and low-foodstore-access census tracts. A census tract’s low-income status is based on a poverty rate of 20 percent or higher, or median family income that is at or below 80 percent of the State’s or metropolitan area’s median income. In one measure of foodstore access, a census tract is considered low access if at least 500 people or at least 33 percent of the population live more than 1 mile from the nearest supermarket, supercenter, or large grocery store in urban tracts or more than 10 miles in rural tracts. From 2015 to 2019, the number of urban low-income and low-access (known as LILA) tracts increased from 7,905 to 7,941. This increase can be attributed to a decrease in access to foodstores rather than to the tract’s low-income status. The number of census tracts classified as low income decreased in urban areas, but the number of low-access tracts increased from 24,322 to 24,362 in that time. The number of rural LILA tracts also increased, from 1,340 tracts to 1,352 tracts. This increase was because of a greater overlap in low-income and low-access census tracts in rural areas despite declines in the two separate categories. The data for this chart can be found in the ERS Food Access Research Atlas data product.