Feeding America undertook the Map the Meal Gap project, with the generous support of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and The Nielsen Company, to learn more about the face of hunger at the local community level.
The report data and accompanying information are taken from this web site.
In Jefferson County (that means Birmingham and surrounding areas):
118,630 people are food insecure – that is 17.9% of the population.
42% of those are below the SNAP level of 13% poverty.
19% are between 13% and 18.5% poverty.
38% are above the 18.5% poverty level.
The added cost to support this need is 47 million dollars.
The average price of a meal is estimated at $2.41.
Alabama has 826,770 people who are food insecure and the cost to feed them is estimated to be more than 354 million dollars.
Food insecurity is defined per FDA standards as lack of access at times to enough food for an active healthy life for all household members. Limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate food.
Food insecurity does not mean people do not have food all the time. It usually means they are forced to make a trade off between food and medicine, gasoline, housing or other costs of living.
Income and food insecurity correlate based on a poverty level of $10.830 annual income (13% poverty) to $20,036 (18.5% poverty) for an individual.
Charitable response is intended to cover 100% of the food insecure while government programs cover up to 55% of the food insecure.
There is just one problem. The charities are running out of money due to rising costs of food and gasoline reducing charitable donations from individuals.
The state of Alabama is dead broke and cannot fund programs without Federal assistance that means more borrowing and increasing the national debt.
Employment has not substantially increased so the problems will continue to increase.
If you can find a food bank and can give do so. People are really hungry. This one is not a scam.
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