Food insecurity exists in every county and congressional district in the country. Feeding America’s annual Map the Meal Gap project offers information about local food insecurity.
2016 Statistics

• Food insecurity exists in all 3,142 counties and 436 congressional districts in all 50 states.
• 1 in 7 people across the United States struggles with hunger. The average county food-insecurity rate as of 2018 is 11.5%.
• The average county child food-insecurity rate in 2018 is 15.2%.
• More than half of the counties with the highest rates of overall food insecurity are rural (located outside both metropolitan and micropolitan areas) though rural counties make up less than half of all U.S counties.

HUNGER & POVERTY

1 in 7 Americans struggles to get enough to eat. In fact, hunger or food insecurity exists in virtually every community in the United States. For people in East Central Indiana, hunger is a reality for 74,000 people. Hunger is not confined to a neighborhood, a gender, an age or a race.

Poverty and hunger in America often go hand in hand, but poverty is not the ultimate determinant of food insecurity. People living above the poverty line are often at risk of hunger as well.

Rates of food insecurity among rural households are generally higher than urban households. The irony is that many of these food-insecure households are in the very rural and farm communities whose productivity feeds the world and provides low-cost wholesome food for American consumers.