The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) has released a report on Hunger in America, with data collected by Gallup.  Data on hunger were gathered from more than 530,000 households, providing estimates in every Congressional District and 100 of the country’s largest metropolitan areas through December 2009.

Highlights from the findings:

• Food hardship rose from 16.3 percent of respondent households in the first quarter of 2008 to 19.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. In 2009, the rate dropped slightly, with the rate in the four quarters of 2009 hovering between 17.9 and 18.8 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2009, it was 18.5 percent.
• The food hardship rate is even worse for households with children. Respondents in such households reported food hardship at a rate 1.62 times that of other households – 24.1 percent versus 14.9 percent in 2009.
• In 2009, in 20 states, more than one in five respondents said that they experienced food hardship; in 45 states more than 15 percent reported food hardship. For households with children, in 22 states one quarter or more of respondents reported food hardship.
• Of the 100 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), 82 had 15 percent or more of respondents answering that they did not have enough money to buy needed food at times in the last 12 months. For the 50 largest MSAs, 15 had more than one in four households with children reporting food hardship.
• Of the 436 Congressional Districts (including the District of Columbia), 311 had a food hardship rate of 15 percent or higher. In 139 of them the rate was 20 percent or higher. Practically every Congressional District in the country had more than a tenth of respondents reporting food hardship.