Hunger in Central Texas

Hungry Households

• Nearly one in five adults and one in four children in Texas are hungry.
• 41,000 children under the age of 18 in Travis County are confronted with food insecurity every day.
• 82% of Food Bank Partner Agency recipients are food insecure. 49% of recipients experience outright hunger. (Source: Hunger in America 2006: Central Texas Report, in association with America's Second Harvest)
• 61% of Austin Independent School District (AISD) students are eligible for free or reduced lunch.

Making Ends Meet

• 76% of households receiving assistance from CAFB Partner Agencies report incomes below the federal poverty level. (Source: Hunger in America 2006: Central Texas Report, in association with America's Second Harvest)
• 106,930 (12.6%) of Travis County individuals live below the Federal poverty level ($18,850 for a family of four). (Source: Austin Community Survey, 2004)
• The annual income needed for a Travis County family of four without employee sponsored health insurance to "afford" to live in the Austin area is $53,080. That's 257% above the Federal poverty level. (Source: CPPP.org, The Family Budget Estimator Project)
• Austin continues to have the highest cost of living in the state of Texas, exceeding housing costs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth.

Those Served are Younger

• While the child poverty rate in Texas is 23.2%, for the CAFB service area, 35% of the household members receiving food are children. (Source: Hunger in America 2006: Central Texas Report, in association with America's Second Harvest)
• While 12.4% of Texans in poverty are elderly, only 7% of households receiving food through CAFB are elderly. (Source: Hunger in America 2006: Central Texas Report, in association with America's Second Harvest)

Working Poor

• Approximately 200,000, or 20%, of Travis County residents are classified as "working poor" by the Texas Department of Human Services.  (Source: Basic Needs Coalition, 2005)
• Between 2000 and 2003, the number of households in Travis County increased by 23,274, the majority of which (21,822 households) fell in the lowest three income brackets having an annual income of $24,999 or less.

Who's Serving Our Hungry?

• Of Food Bank Partner Agencies, 71% of pantries and 37% of the soup kitchens are run by faith-based agencies.
• 59% of Partner Agency pantries and 12% of soup kitchens are entirely volunteer run with no paid staff.
• CAFB is by far the most important source of food for its Partner Agencies, accounting for 76% of food for pantries and 38% for soup kitchens.

(Source: Hunger in America 2006: Central Texas Report, in association with America's Second Harvest)

Glossary of Terms

Food Insecurity:  According to the Texas Alliance for Human Needs, food insecurity is defined as the lack of access to enough food to fully meet basic needs at all times due to lack of financial resources.

Food Insufficiency:  The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey's (NHANES) measure of whether a family sometimes or often did not get enough food.

Hunger: The government's definition states, A situation in which an individual involuntarily goes without food for an intermittent or extended period of time.  This situation can be caused by external forces that limit the individual's resources or ability to obtain sufficient food, and may result in detrimental physical and psychological consequences. Hungry households are those in which families have decreased the quality and quantity of food they consume because of lack of money - to the point where they are likely to be hungry on a frequent basis.

Working Poor:  Working poor is defined as living at or below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines ($36,488 for a family of four). (Source: Basic Needs Coalition, 2005).  Other definitions include people who worked, but who nevertheless, fell under the official definition of poverty and people who were in poverty and had at least one working family member.