One in five households with children were food insecure at some time in 2014

In 2014, 19.2 percent of households with children were food insecure at some time during the year. Parents often are able to maintain normal or near-normal diets and meal patterns for their children, even when the parents themselves are food insecure. In about half of food-insecure households with children in 2014, only adults were food insecure (9.8 percent of households with children); in the rest, children were also food insecure. Thus, both children and adults were food insecure in 9.4 percent of households with children (3.7 million households). In 1.1 percent of households with children (422,000 households), food insecurity among children was so severe that caregivers reported that children were hungry, skipped a meal, or did not eat for a whole day because there was not enough money for food. In some households with very low food security among children, only older children may have experienced the more severe effects of food insecurity while younger children were protected from those effects. This chart appears in the ERS report, Household Food Security in the United States in 2014.