Illinois Food Bank Association

Hunger in Illinois

  • According to the USDA, 9.8% of Illinois households face food insecurity.1
  • America’s Second Harvest recently released a report indicating that 497,991 children in Illinois (15.4% of children) are food insecure.2
  • The members of the Illinois Food Bank Association distributed nearly 80 million pounds of food to families in need in the last year—serving more than 900,000 individuals.3
  • In 2006, 3.3% of all U.S. households (3.8 million households) accessed emergency food from a food pantry one or more times.1
  • Hunger is a symptom of poverty and the poverty rate in Illinois in 2006 was 11%. The number of people living in poverty in Illinois was 1,389,281.4
  • The USDA estimates that 74% of eligible individuals were participating in the food stamp program in Illinois, in 2005. During this same time, approximately 64% of the eligible “working poor” were participating in this vital nutrition program.5
  • According to the USDA, in FY 2007, 1,246,766 individuals and 569,206 households participated in the Food Stamp Program in Illinois.6
  • During the 2005-06 school year, nearly 700,000 Illinois children received free or reduced-price lunch through the National School Lunch Program.7
  1. USDA. Mark Nord, M. Andrews, S. Carlson. Household Food Security in the United States, 2006.
  2. Cook, John T. Ph.D. Child Food Insecurity in the United States: 2003 - 2005. America's Second Harvest - The Nation's Food Bank Network, October 2007.
  3. Illinois Food Bank Association member service statistics.
  4. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey data sets 2001-2006, calculations conducted by the Mid-American Institute on Poverty of Heartland Alliance.
  5. USDA. Reaching Those in Need: State Food Stamp Participation Rates in 2005.
  6. USDA. FNS Program Data. Available at http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/data.htm.
  7. FRAC. State of the States, 2007. Available at http://www.frac.org/State_Of_States/2007/states/IL.pdf.