Definition

Children under age 18 living in households, where in the previous 12 months, there was an uncertainty of having, or an inability to acquire, enough food for all household members because of insufficient money or other resources.
Children under age 18 living in households, where in the previous 12 months, there was an uncertainty of having, or an inability to acquire, enough food for all household members because of insufficient money or other resources.

Food insecurity refers to USDA’s measure of lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. Food insecure households are not necessarily food insecure all the time. Food insecurity may reflect a household’s need to make trade-offs between important basic needs, such as housing or medical bills, and purchasing nutritionally adequate foods.

Data for 2018 are NOT directly comparable to data from any data due to methodological changes made in 2020.

Data Source

Feeding America: Map the Meal Gap     Gundersen, C., A. Dewey, E. Engelhard, M. Strayer & L. Lapinski. Map the Meal Gap 2020: A Report on County and Congressional District Food Insecurity and County Food Cost in the United States in 2018. Feeding America, 2020.

Due to methodological changes, data for 2018 are NOT directly comparable to data from any data due to methodological changes made in 2020.

Notes

Map the Meal Gap's child food insecurity rates are determined using data from the 2001-2018 Current Population Survey on children under 18 years old in food insecure households; data from the 2018 American Community Survey on median family incomes for households with children, child poverty rates, home ownership, and race and ethnic demographics among children; and 2018 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on unemployment rates.

Data in the state totals row do not reflect the sum of all counties in that state. The state totals are aggregated from the congressional districts data in that state.

Due to methodological changes, data for 2018 are NOT directly comparable to data from any data due to methodological changes made in 2020.

Uploaded: August 2020

Last Updated

2020-08