Nearly One in Five Americans Report Inability to Afford Enough Food

New food hardship data was released today by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC),  The research shows continuing struggles with hunger for millions throughout 2011, as nearly one in five Americans said there were times they didn’t have enough money to buy food that they or their families needed.

FRAC’s food hardship report  analyzes data that were collected by Gallup and provided to FRAC. The data were gathered as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index project, which has been interviewing almost 1,000 households daily since January 2008. FRAC has analyzed responses to the question: “Have there been times in the past twelve months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?” The report contains data throughout 2011 for every state, region, congressional district, and 100 of the country’s largest metropolitan areas (MSA). Gallup asked the question of 352,789 households in 2011.

Nationally, 18.6 percent of respondents reported food hardship in 2011, an increase from the 2010 level of 18 percent and the highest annual rate in the four years that FRAC has been tracking these data. Food hardship reached every part of the country: