To better understand who’s facing hunger, Feeding America recently released its 2024 Map the Meal Gap study. The report, based on the most recent available
data from 2022, examines food insecurity rates by location, race, and ethnicity, as well as rates of child hunger throughout the country.
According to the Department of Agriculture, people who are food insecure have less access to the right amount of quality food that enables them to maintain a healthy, active lifestyle. People who are food insecure may not have enough food for a variety of nutritious meals or enough food to put on their dinner table.
2022 marked the highest one-year increase of food insecurity since 2008, rising from 10.4% in 2021 to 13.5% in 2022. Feeding America explains that the end of the pandemic programs and the rise in household expenses were contributing factors in the high year-over-year increase. An estimated 44 million people in the United States are facing food insecurity, the highest level since 2014, and there are people facing food insecurity in 100% of United States counties.
As a partner food bank in the Feeding America network, Second Harvest Inland Northwest proudly serves 26 counties in Eastern Washington and North Idaho. Within our service region, approximately 1 in 7 people, including 1 in 5 children, is food insecure.
To learn more about food insecurity in Second Harvest’s service area and throughout the United States, please visit Feeding America’s interactive map: https://map.feedingamerica.org/county/2021/overall/washington/organization/second-harvest-inland-northwest.
If you’d like to join local hunger-relief efforts, visit 2-harvest.org for volunteer opportunities in Spokane and Pasco.
