New Report: Childhood Hunger in America’s Suburbs

Our new report released today, Childhood Hunger in America’s Suburbs, found that since the Great Recession nearly half of all public school children newly eligible for free and reduced-price lunches live in the suburbs – far more than live in inner cities or rural areas. And while urban areas are still home to the most total eligible children, that could soon change.

Gideon Weissman

Former Policy Analyst, Frontier Group

When you imagine the suburbs, what do you think of? Although the Great Recession saw newspapers plastered with images of foreclosure signs and boarded up windows, for many the word “suburb” still conjures images of white picket fences, comfortable homes and two-car garages.

Our new report released today, Childhood Hunger in America’s Suburbs, reveals that in many cases that perception no longer fits reality. Rather, we found that since the Great Recession nearly half of all public school children newly eligible for free and reduced-price lunches live in the suburbs – far more than live in inner cities or rural areas.* And while urban areas are still home to the most total eligible children, that could soon change.

The trends seen in our analysis (a follow-up to last year’s report of the same name) reinforce other research from recent years that demonstrate the changing nature of American poverty and hunger. Since the year 2000, poverty has grown twice as fast in America’s suburbs as in its cities. Nearly 16 million children lived in food-insecure households in 2013, and the percentage of all children living in food-insecure households increased from 17 percent to 21 percent from 2007 to 2013. Overall poverty in the U.S. has increased – more than one in seven Americans is now poor, according to 2013 census data.

Our analysis also looked at city-by-city data and found that, while America was not impacted uniformly by the Great Recession, the vast majority of American metropolitan areas have seen childhood eligibility for free and reduced-price lunch increase in their suburbs. In Phoenix, one of the cities hardest hit by the recession, the number of eligible children increased by 10 percentage points across the city – but increased by 16 percentage points in the suburbs. In the suburbs of Denver, a city whose economic recovery was swift by comparison, the percentage of eligible children increased from 23 to 33 percent from the 2006-07 to 2012-13 school years.

The takeaway from all this? America is changing, and policymakers need to adapt. We know that childhood hunger is a problem that can be addressed – we already have important programs in place like the National School Lunch Program, SNAP, and the Summer Food Service Program. But to ensure that we can effectively prevent and reduce childhood hunger moving forward, we need to understand it. Our hope is that Childhood Hunger in America’s Suburbs can provide new insight for combating childhood hunger in a changing country.

 

* All trends discussed here are for data for which accurate comparisons could be made. Please see the full report for all caveats and for a full methodology.

Authors

Gideon Weissman

Former Policy Analyst, Frontier Group