Household Food Security in the United States, 2005

by Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews, and Steven Carlson

Eighty-nine percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2005, meaning that they had access, at all times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households were food insecure at least some time during that year. The prevalence of food insecurity declined from 11.9 percent of households in 2004 to 11.0 percent in 2005, while the prevalence of very low food security remained unchanged at 3.9 percent. This report, based on data from the December 2005 food security survey, provides the most recent statistics on the food security of U.S. households, as well as on how much they spent for food and the extent to which food-insecure households participated in Federal and community food assistance programs.

Keywords: Food security, food insecurity, hunger, food expenditures, food spending, food pantries, food stamp program, national school lunch program, WIC

In this publication...

• Entire Report
• Report Summary
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Household Food Security
• Household Spending on Food
• Use of Federal and Community Food Assistance Programs
• References
• Appendix A: Household Responses to Questions in the Food Security Scale
• Appendix B: Background on the U.S. Food Security Measurement Project
• Appendix C: USDA?s Thrifty Food Plan
• Appendix D: Prevalence Rates of Food Insecurity by State, 1996-98, 2000-2002, and 2003-05
• Appendix E: Food Security During 30 Days Prior to Food Security Survey