Food security—consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life—is essential for health and good nutrition. The extent to which a nation’s population achieves food security is an indication of its material and social well-being. Differences in the prevalence of household level...

Rural America at a Glance, 2013 Edition highlights the most recent indicators of social and economic conditions in rural areas. This year's edition focuses on the U.S. rural economy, including employment trends, poverty, and population trends.

This study reports trends in rural low-skill employment in the 1990s and their impact on the rural workforce. The share of rural jobs classified as low-skill fell by 2.2 percentage points between 1990 and 2000, twice the decline of the urban low-skill employment share, but much less than the...

This Economic Information Bulletin describes characteristics of low-income households that had very low food security in 2005. The U.S. Department of Agriculture monitors the food security of low-income households to assess how effectively the Government’s domestic nutrition assistance...

The value of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits has declined due to inflation since the increase in benefit size in April 2009 mandated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Earlier Economic Research Service (ERS) research documented improvements in food...

Self-selection by more food-needy households into the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called the Food Stamp Program) makes it difficult to observe positive effects of the program in survey data. This study investigates self-selection and ameliorative program effects by...

From 2000 to 2007, median spending on food by U.S. households declined by 12 percent relative to the (rising) cost of USDA’s Thrifty Food Plan, and by 6 percent relative to the (rising) Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Food and Beverages. Over the same period, the national prevalence of very low...

Eighty-five percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2008, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (14.6 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the...

Eighty-nine percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2006, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (10.9 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the...