Hunger in North Carolina

Every night, people in almost 630,000 North Carolina households don’t have enough to eat. North Carolina has the 8th highest rate of food insecurity in the nation.

A food-secure household means that all members of the home have access to enough healthy and nutritious food to support an active and healthy lifestyle. Homes that have low food security often must make tough choices about the amount and quality of food they are able to provide their families. Homes that are considered to have “very low” food security often miss meals. According to the USDA, in the past year, more than 90 percent of these families worried that food would run out, nearly 80 percent could not afford a balanced meal, and people in 96 percent of homes with very low food security skipped meals in order to make food stretch.

Download our fact sheet to read more about who’s going hungry and what policymakers can do to help alleviate the problem.