Childhood food insecurity across America, mapped
Over 40% of children in some U.S. counties live in food-insecure households, per new estimates shared first with Axios from Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks.
Why it matters: Potential cuts or changes to federal food aid programs like SNAP and tariffs on imported foods could affect millions of Americans and exacerbate the childhood hunger crisis.
By the numbers: Hancock County, Georgia (46.9%), Perry County, Alabama (46.8%), and Holmes County, Mississippi (46.2%) had the highest estimated childhood food insecurity rates as of 2023, per Feeding America's new Map the Meal Gap report.
The rate tends to be higher in relatively poor, rural counties — but there are urban areas with high rates as well, like New York's Bronx County (33.1%).
An estimated 14 million U.S. children overall live in food-insecure homes. That's about one out of every five kids.
How it works: Map the Meal Gap is an annual effort to make local estimates about food insecurity among different groups, in part by using government data.
The childhood food insecurity rate represents the share of children who live in food-insecure households, which lack or have uncertain access to adequate food.
See more about the methodology here.
The big picture: Childhood food insecurity is one piece of a broader hunger problem exacerbated by rising food costs.
The annual aggregate national food budget shortfall — meaning, the total amount of money people in food-insecure U.S. households need to buy enough food — rose from $28.5 billion in 2022 to $32.2 billion in 2023, up 8.4% inflation-adjusted.
What they're saying: " What we saw in 2023 was that for the third consecutive year, this reported need increased," Adam Dewey, research director at Feeding America, tells Axios of the food budget figures.
"It didn't increase by as much as we saw in 2022, but the fact that the level of need among the food-insecure population is increasing alongside the number of individuals who are experiencing food insecurity is a double whammy that is a concern."
What's next: As the school year nears its end, the perennial threat of "summer hunger" will once again be an issue for kids who rely on school meals to get enough to eat.
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Miami Herald
36 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
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National Geographic
an hour ago
- National Geographic
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San Francisco Chronicle
6 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
American slavery wasn't just a white man's business − white women profited, too
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Trevon Logan, The Ohio State University (THE CONVERSATION) As the United States continues to confront the realities and legacy of slavery, Americans continue to challenge myths about the country's history. One enduring myth is that slavery was a largely male endeavor — that, for the most part, the buying, selling, trading and profiting from enslavement were carried out by white men alone. While white women certainly interacted with enslaved people in household management and day-to-day tasks, historians once argued that they weren't active owners and had very limited involvement in transactions. This was once widely believed to be a reason why Southern white women supported the institution – they were assumed to be blind to its darker side. As an expert in the economic history of slavery, I know the story is far more complex. In fact, slavery was unique in economically empowering women. It was, in essence, an early feminist institution – but exclusively for white women. A lasting myth The myth that women didn't profit from slavery has endured for several reasons. First, before the American Civil War, married women generally owned nothing of their own. The legal institution of coverture made the property a woman brought into her marriage into the property of her husband. This also meant that if a husband was in debt, a creditor could claim the wife's property for payment. In addition, there are very few surviving records that show Southern white women discussing the business of slavery. And finally, in cases where women were owners of enslaved people – say, through the death of a husband – they often used agents or male relatives to handle their affairs. Added together, there's very little to suggest that white women were deeply involved in the slavery business. Researchers have started to challenge this view by moving beyond the traditional archival sources. The innovative historian Stephanie Jones-Rogers has documented how regularly white women were seen in all aspects of American enslavement. Her most compelling evidence comes from interviews with the formerly enslaved people themselves, who noted who they were owned by and explained how belonging to the 'misses' affected every aspect of their life. The 'white feminism' of American slavery Historians have also started grappling with the ways American slavery was uniquely gender-egalitarian – at least for white women. While Northern women were trapped in coverture, Southern states were bypassing coverture specifically for the purpose of giving married women rights to own enslaved people. The earliest such act passed in the United States was the Mississippi Married Women's Property Law of 1839. This law explicitly awarded married white women ownership status over enslaved individuals. Slavery was the driver of this change: Four of the five sections of the act refer only to property in enslaved people. Similar acts were passed by other Southern states in the antebellum era to shield married women from responsibility of their husband's debts and also to allow women to independently accumulate wealth during marriage. Of course, laws on the books may not reflect how people actually behaved. But new research shows that white women were very involved in the business of slavery. In states where enslaved people were titled property – like a house or car today – sales were recorded with names of buyers, sellers and the names of the enslaved people in the transaction. White women in states where legislation formally protected their property rights to enslaved property were much more likely to be active in the market. Further analysis of these records shows that white women were involved in nearly a third of all transactions, buying and selling in equal proportion. White women were especially likely to buy and sell enslaved women, making up nearly 40% of the people doing the buying and selling. Enslaved women were especially economically valuable because if someone owned an enslaved women, they automatically became the owner of all of her children. For slave owners, owning an enslaved woman was an intergenerational wealth-building activity. A historical irony We are left to confront a deep irony in American history. Slavery gave white women in the South significantly more economic independence than those in the North, and they used this freedom with remarkable regularity. Women in slave states had legal rights to property that was half of the wealth in the southern United States at the time. Women in the North could only dream of such economic independence. While historians once claimed that white women supported the Confederacy because they were blind to the reality of slavery, researchers now know that they could have been motivated by the same economic impulses as their husbands. Slavery was actually a more gender-egalitarian institution than other forms of property or wealth accumulation, so it's not surprising that white women would have a vested interest in it.
