Household Food Security in the United States, 2007

by Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews, and Steven Carlson

Eighty-nine percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2007, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (11.1 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year. About one-third of food insecure households (4.1 percent of all U.S. households) had very low food security-meaning that the food intake of one or more adults was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food. Prevalence rates of food insecurity and very low food security were essentially unchanged from those in 2005 and 2006.

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

In this publication...

• Entire Report
• Download ERR66.zip
• Report summary
• Abstract, Acknowledgments, Contents, and Summary
• Introduction
• Household Food Security
• Household Spending on Food
• Use of Federal and Community Food and Nutrition 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?Food Security During 30 Days Prior to Food Security Survey