Report Exposes Broad Hunger and Provides First-Ever Food Hardship Data for Every State, the Top 100 Large Cities and Every Congressional District
(NYC, NY) - The Congressional districts represented by Jose Serrano (number 1 overall nationally) and Edolphus Townes (number 6) had among the highest rates of hunger in the entire country according to a major new survey by Gallup and the Food Research Action Center (FRAC).
The nationwide survey of more than half a million households found that in 2009 more than one in six, or 17.4%, of New York households reported in 2009 not having enough money to buy food that they needed during the prior twelve months for themselves or their family. This rate was significantly higher for NY households with children (23.3%) over the two year survey period.
Twenty-five of the twenty-nine Congressional districts in New York had more than one in ten households experiencing hunger in NYS. The Albany-Troy-Schenectady MSA had an overall hunger rate of 16.5%, including 21.6% among children.
"Hunger has been increasing dramatically in our state over the last two years," noted Mark Dunlea, Executive Director of the Hunger Action Network. "The loss of jobs and the housing crisis has increased the demand for emergency food by more than 50% statewide in the last two years. In this context, the Governor's proposed draconian cuts to so many essential services, especially for the homeless, and lack of jobs funding, would be a tidal wave overwhelming the safety net," he added.
Hunger Action has been urging that the state allocate at least $100 million dollars from a special welfare fund under the economic stimulus package to create jobs for welfare participants. The state recently learned that it will receive an additional $638 million from this source, which must be spent by September 2010.
"Nearly one in four children in our state feel the pain of hunger. The rate of poverty among children is well over 25% in many inner cities upstate such as Rochester, Buffalo, and Albany. This is why we need at least increase funding by $4 billion for the various child nutrition programs such as schools and summer meals and WIC," added Dunlea.
The 16th Congressional District in the South Bronx, represented by Rep. José E. Serrano, had the highest rate of food hardship out of all the 436 congressional districts in the nation. More than one in three residents of that district did not have enough money to buy all the food that they or their family needed. Seven of the 13 congressional districts in New York City, including that district, faced severe food hardships, with more than 20% of residents in each of those districts lacking money for food.
“It is a horrible sign of time times that in the South Bronx, one in three people ran out of money for food, and that in more than half the other neighborhoods, more than one in five did. Considering that the city still has 56 billionaires, this is an appalling turn of events, which provides the latest wake-up call that all levels of government need to take immediate action to reverse the city’s growing hunger poverty, and inequality of wealth,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.
The Gallup - FRAC survey mirrors the recent report by the U.S, Department of Agriculture (USDA) that 49 million Americans did not have consistent access to food in 2008, with 14.6% of Americans being classified as "food insecure".
The report analyzes survey data that were collected by Gallup and provided to FRAC. The ability to provide such localized data and such up-to-date data comes from Gallup’s partnership with Healthways, interviewing 1,000 households per day almost every day since January 2, 2008 as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index project. From that date through December 2009, more than 650,000 people have been asked a series of questions on a range of topics including emotional health, physical health, healthy behavior, work environment and access to basic services. Specific to this report, more than 530,000 people were asked whether there were times over the preceding year that they did not have enough money to buy food they or their family needed.
The Gallup survey question on food hardship is very similar to one posed by the Census Bureau and analyzed by the USDA in its official measure of food insecurity, but because of sample size Gallup provides us with a closer, more localized and more recent look at food hardship. Official government data on food insecurity have a nearly one-year time lag and do not go below the state level.
“The data in this report show that food hardship – running out of money to buy the food that families need – is truly a national problem. It is a national problem in the sense that the rate for the nation is so high,” said Jim Weill, president of FRAC. “And it is a national problem in the sense that rates are high in virtually every state, Metropolitan Statistical Area, and Congressional District.”
“President Obama has set a goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015. As we can see with the new data, the struggle with hunger is a serious problem in New York for children and adults. Not a minute can be wasted between now and 2015 if we’re to reach that goal. All corners of government, the private sector and nonprofits must work together in order to implement long-term strategies that will battle our nation’s hunger crisis,” noted Andreas Kriefall, Hunger Action's upstate director.
The full report is available at www.frac.org. A copy of the tables are at http://frac.org/pdf/food_hardship_tables_2010.pdf
CD district / Congressmember/ rate of food insecurity / rank by CD nationally
1st Timothy Bishop 12.0 384
2nd Steve Israel 13.7 339
3rd Pete King 10.1 410
4th Carolyn McCarthy 9.4 419
5th Gary Ackerman 14.2 324
6th Gregory W. Meeks 21.0 114
7th Joseph Crowley 22.5 75
8th Jerrold Nadler 10.2 406
9th Anthony D. Weiner 7.8 430
10th Edolphus Towns 30.8 6
11th Yvette D. Clarke 19.5 157
12th Nydia M. Velázquez 24.0 50
13th Michael E. McMahon 19.8 140
14th Carolyn Maloney 7.9 428
15th Charles B. Rangel 24.1 49
16th José E. Serrano 36.9 1
17th Eliot Engel 21.0 114
18th Nita Lowey 7.0 434
19th John J. Hall 12.8 358
20th Scott Murphy 16.7 260
21st Paul D. Tonko 16.4 268
22nd Maurice Hinchey 16.7 260
23rd Bill Owens 17.4 237
24th Michael A. Arcuri 16.0 280
25th Daniel B. Maffei 16.7 260
26th Christopher J. Lee 13.8 337
27th Brian Higgins 13.9 331
28th Louise Slaughter 21.8 94
29th Eric J.J. Massa 17.6 231
