QuickStats: Percentage* of Families That Often or Sometimes Did Not Have Enough Food To Last 30 Days and Did Not Have Enough Money to Buy More,† by Poverty Status§ — National Health Interview Survey, United States, 2018
Weekly / July 3, 2020 / 69(26);850
* With 95% confidence intervals shown by error bars.
† Household interviews of a sample of the civilian, noninstitutionalized U.S. population were conducted using the National Health Interview Survey Family component. Estimates were derived from answers to the question “The food that I/we bought just didn’t last, and I/we didn’t have money to get more. Was that often true, sometimes true, or never true for your family in the last 30 days?” The percentages who responded “often true” or “sometimes true” are presented in the QuickStats.
§ Poverty status was based on family income and family size, using the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty thresholds. “Poor” families are defined as those with incomes below the poverty threshold; “near poor” families have incomes of 100% to less than 200% of the poverty threshold; and “not poor” families have incomes of 200% of the poverty threshold or greater.
During 2018, 2.7% of U.S. families often did not have enough food and did not have enough money to buy more to last 30 days. Poor families (9.6%) were more likely than near-poor families (4.9%) and not-poor families (0.8%) to often lack food. An estimated 8.2% of families sometimes did not have enough food or the money to buy more, and the percentage varied by poverty status: poor families (22.6%), near-poor families (16.2%), and not-poor families (3.4%).
Source: National Health Interview Survey, 2018 data. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm.
Reported by: Michael E. Martinez, MPH, MHSA, bmd7@cdc.gov, 301-458-4758; Tainya C. Clarke, PhD.
Suggested citation for this article: QuickStats: Percentage of Families That Often or Sometimes Did Not Have Enough Food To Last 30 Days and Did Not Have Enough Money to Buy More, by Poverty Status — National Health Interview Survey, United States, 2018. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2020;69:850. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6926a5.