Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization, has released its annual Map the Meal Gap report on Idaho that estimates 12.7% of Idahoans are food insecure.
Food insecurity is when people don’t have enough to eat and don’t know where their next meal will come from.
About 16% of Idaho children face food insecurity, according to the report, an increase from last year’s Map the Meal Gap report, which estimated 11.4% of Idahoans and 14.5% of Idaho children were food insecure.
Map the Meal Gap is the only study that provides local-level estimates of food insecurity for every county.
The report uses publicly available data from 2023 from various publicly available sources of information, including the USDA Economic Research Service, U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The latest Map the Meal Gap report reaffirms what we have been seeing across Idaho, that more of our neighbors are reaching out for support,” said Randy Ford, President and CEO of The Idaho Foodbank.
The study builds upon the USDA’s latest report of national and state data, which showed 47 million people experienced food insecurity in 2023, the highest level in nearly a decade. That number included 14 million children.
Around 50,000 people in North and North Central Idaho are estimated to be food insecure.
Among the findings, 63% of food insecure Idahoans were found to have an income that is higher than the qualifications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Nationally, 85% of counties with the highest food insecurity are rural. The highest rates of food insecurity in Idaho are in Lewis County (17.6%), Butte County (16.9%) and Shoshone County (16.6%). The Idaho counties with the highest rates of food insecurity among children are Lewis County (25%), Shoshone County (24.8%), Boundary County (24%) and Clearwater County (23.4%).
More information from the Map the Meal Gap report is available at FeedingAmerica.org/MaptheMealGap.
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