THE COASTAL PACKET: Another LePage legacy: food insecurity

Tuesday, September 12

Another LePage legacy: food insecurity

Beacon-A new report released this week from the US Department of Agriculture found that while the nation as a whole has continued to make progress against hunger, over the last year Maine has dropped from 9th worst in the country to 7th worst in food insecurity. Over the past decade, food insecurity in Maine has increased by 27%.

Maine ranks even worse, third in the country, for the percentages of households falling into the even-more dire category of “very low food security.”

Food insecurity in Maine is now 25% worse than the national average, with 16.4% of households are food insecure compared to 13% nationally. To be “food insecure” means that a person or family does not have reliable access to a sufficient amount of affordable, nutritious food. 7.4 percent of Maine households now have very low food security.

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