Food Bank for Larimer County

Hunger in America, 2006

The America's Second Harvest Network of food banks and food-rescue organizations provides emergency hunger-relief services to an estimated 25.3 million low-income people each year, or roughly 9% of all Americans. To better understand the problem of hunger, a national comprehensive study was conducted to provide in-depth information about the clients served and the need for hunger relief in the country. Below is a sampling of data from more than 52,000 face-to-face interviews and thousands of food service agencies from across the country.

Hunger in America, National Averages:

66% of client households had annual incomes below the federal poverty line.
70% of all clients served are food insecure*
46% of clients do not have a working car
41% of clients have had to choose between paying for food or utilities, 35% have had to choose between food and rent or mortgage, and 32% have had to choose between food and medical care.
13 million children in the U.S. live in poverty, and 9 million of the people served by food banks nationwide are children under the age of 18.
36% of client households have at least one adult working.
51% of all households reported incomes of less than $10,000 in the previous year.
61 % of clients are single-female headed households.
Food banks provide most of the food distributed by the emergency food system, providing 74% of the food distributed by pantries, 49% of the food prepared and served at kitchens, and 41.5% provided through shelters.

* Food insecurity is limited or certain unavailability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.
Hunger is the uneasy or painful sensation caused by a lack of food; the recurrent and involuntary lack of access to food.

To see the full Hunger in America report on food distribution in the United States, please visit www.hungerinamerica.org.