Report: U.S. Has Far More Child Food Insecurity Than Canada

The percentage of households who cannot afford an adequate supply of food is far higher in the U.S. than in Canada – and the difference is particularly severe in families with children – according to a new study written jointly by researchers who work for the U.S. and Canadian governments.

Covering the years 2003-2005, the study found that out of all households, 14.1% of U.S. adults and 9.0% of Canadian adults suffered from food insecurity.

Among households with children, the rate of adult food insecurity in the U.S. was nearly twice that in Canada, and the rate of “severe food insecurity” (the term previously called “hunger” by the U.S. government) among adults was approximately 80 percent higher in the U.S. than in Canada. Food insecurity among children was also substantially higher in the U.S. than in Canada – roughly 70 percent higher for overall child food insecurity and more than 50 percent higher for severe child food insecurity.

In households with children, 19.2% of U.S. adults and 9.8% of Canadian adults suffered from food insecurity. Because adults often deny food to themselves in order to feed their children, the food insecurity among their children was somewhat lower, yet fully 8.8% of U.S. children and 5.2% of Canadian children lacked sufficient food.

The report, available at http://www.nyccah.org/files/Canada_US_Comparison.pdf, describes for the first time how another developed nation systematically used the same methodology used by the U.S. government to measure food insecurity and hunger.

Said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, “For quite some time, many of us have suspected that the U.S. had a higher rate of hunger and food insecurity than other developed countries, but now we know for a fact that we have far more hunger than our northern neighbors. It is bad enough that a nation as wealthy overall as Canada allows one in 20 children to lack sufficient food, but it is truly appalling that a nation as rich as America allows one in every 12 children to go without enough food.”

The full title of the paper is “Food Insecurity in Canada and the United States: An International Comparison.” It was written by three of North America’s most respected hunger researchers: Mark Nord, Ph.D., Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; Michelle Hooper, M.Sc., Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion, Health Canada; and Heather Hopwood, MPH, Food and Nutrition Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The paper was delivered at a public conference. As is often the case with such conference papers, it has yet to be peer reviewed and its contents are the views of the authors and may not be attributed to the U.S. or Canadian governments.

In the past, when anti-hunger advocates have speculated that the U.S. might have higher levels of food insecurity than Canada, conservative commentators have countered that, if true, it would be due to America’s unique history of long periods of significant poverty and economic diversity.

Yet the paper found: “The food security status of households is strongly associated with their income, and the national-level differences in food insecurity described above might be thought to result in large part from differences in income distribution between the two countries. Cross-classification of households by food security status and income adequacy, however, suggests that this is not true. Rather, the differences in food insecurity reflect almost entirely differences between the two countries in the prevalence of food insecurity among households with similar cash incomes. Households in the U.S. are, on average, more likely to be food insecure than households in Canada with the same annual income and household size.”

In other words, low-income families in the U.S. are far more likely to be food insecure than low-income families in Canada. While the paper did not seek to provide comprehensive explanations for the food insecurity disparities between the two countries, it did find a correlation with Canadians’ higher average levels of educational attainment.

Continued Berg, “While the paper does not address why the U.S. has far more hunger than Canada other than citing educational differences, I believe there are three additional reasons: 1) Canada has a higher minimum wage than the U.S, even adjusted for currency differences; 2) social service benefits are generally far more generous in Canada than in the U.S.; and 3) because Canada provides free health care for all its residents, Canadians pay a far smaller amount of their family income on health care than do Americans.”

“As the U.S. Congress continues to debate how much the new Farm Bill will do to reduce America’s soaring hunger and food insecurity, I hope this report provides our lawmakers with a wake-up call. The U.S. might be satisfied when Canada does better than us in ice hockey, but we should never be satisfied when they do better than us in feeding our children,” said Berg.

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