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...

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...

Eighty-nine percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2007, meaning that all household members had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. The remaining households (11.1 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year....

American farms encompass a wide range of sizes, ownership structures, and business types, but most farms are still family farms. Family farms account for 98 percent of farms and 85 percent of production. Although most farms are small and own most of the farmland, production has shifted to very...

Ninety-one percent of U.S. farms are classified as small—gross cash farm income (GCFI) of less than $250,000. About 60 percent of these small farms are very small, generating GCFI of less than $10,000. These very small noncommercial farms, in some respects, exist independently of the farm...