The administration touted a report which stated that food insecurity fell to its lowest point last year since the 2008 global financial crisis, but Americans’ worst nutritional woes remained unchanged.
The annual Department of Agriculture survey released Wednesday found that the rate of those suffering “very low” food insecurity in 2014 held steady at 5.6 percent. The rate of those considered “food insecure” fell to 14 percent, from 14.7 percent.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that the findings of the survey show food security “is the strongest it’s been since before the Recession”–an admission that a higher general level of food anxiety has been the new norm in the US since the world banking system collapsed seven years ago.
The 2014 data brought the average annual post-2008 rate of food insecurity down to 14.5 percent. Between the years of 1998 and 2007, it was just above 11 percent.
The average annual rate of “very low” food security between 1998 and 2007 was 3.6 percent. Between 2008 and 2014, it rose to about 5.6 percent.
Food security and “very low” food security are calculated by USDA using a supplement attached to the Census Bureau’s monthly Current Population Survey.
“Households are classified as food secure if they report no food-insecure conditions or if they report only one or two food-insecure conditions,” USDA noted.
It also stated that “very low” security depends on the make-up of households, but that its “defining characteristic” is instances of reduced consumption and disrupted eating routines “because the household lacked money and other resources for food.”
In January, Census data showed that a record number of kids were benefiting from food stamps. The under-18 cohort receiving SNAP benefits broke the 16 million threshold in 2014 for the first time since the data started being published in 2007. The rate of Americans under the age of 18 receiving food stamps was also up to 21.7 percent, from 21.2 percent the two years before.
Vilsack noted that the overall rate of food security would be lower if not for this social safety net. He said the annual report “reflects the continued importance of anti-poverty and nutrition programs, including SNAP and healthier school meals, which help to keep food insecurity from rising.”
Read the USDA report, “Household Food Security in the United States in 2014,” here.
