Food insecurity affects roughly 2.3 billion people worldwide and about 13.5% of U.S. households. But it doesn’t strike evenly. Certain groups face dramatically higher rates based on race, income, age, disability status, and geography. Understanding who carries the heaviest burden helps explain why food insecurity persists even in wealthy countries.
The Global and U.S. Picture
Globally, about 673 million people experienced outright hunger in 2024, representing 8.2% of the world’s population. A broader measure that includes people who had to cut meals, skip days of eating, or go without adequate food at some point during the year puts the number at 2.3 billion, or 28% of all people on earth. That figure dropped only slightly from 28.4% the year before.
In the United States, roughly 13.5% of households were food insecure in both 2023 and 2024, a rate that has held steady after climbing from 12.8% in 2022. One detail that surprises many people: two-thirds of food-insecure Americans report incomes above the federal poverty line. Food insecurity isn’t limited to the poorest households. Rising costs of housing, healthcare, and childcare can squeeze food budgets even for families with steady paychecks.
Racial and Ethnic Disparities
The gaps by race are stark. USDA data shows that American Indian and Alaska Native households have the highest food insecurity rate at 23.3%, nearly three times the rate for White households (8.0%). Black households follow at 21.0%, then Hispanic households at 16.9% and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander households at 15.6%. Multiracial households also face elevated rates, ranging from about 18% to nearly 22% depending on racial combination. Asian households have the lowest rate at 5.4%.
These disparities reflect layers of structural disadvantage: differences in wealth accumulation, neighborhood access to grocery stores, employment stability, and historical patterns of residential segregation that concentrate poverty in specific communities.
Households With Children
Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. households with children (17.9%) were food insecure in 2023. That’s a sharp jump from 12.5% in 2021. Parents in food-insecure homes often shield their kids from the worst of it, eating less themselves so children can eat. But even when children aren’t going hungry in the strictest sense, living in a food-insecure household affects development. Research links it to behavioral problems, lower academic performance, and poorer health outcomes that can follow children into adulthood.
Older Adults
About 5.2 million Americans aged 60 and older are food insecure, representing over 7% of that age group. Seniors face a distinct set of barriers: fixed incomes that don’t keep pace with food prices, mobility limitations that make grocery shopping difficult, social isolation that reduces motivation to cook, and medical expenses that compete with food budgets. Many older adults also underuse assistance programs due to stigma or lack of awareness that they qualify.
People With Disabilities
Disability roughly doubles the likelihood of food insecurity. Households that include someone with a disability have a food insecurity rate of about 17.6%, compared to 8.9% for households without a disabled member. Across multiple national surveys, disability is associated with a 225% to 292% increase in the odds of living in a food-insecure household. The reasons are layered: disability often limits earning potential, increases medical costs, and can make it physically harder to shop for and prepare food.
College Students
Food insecurity on college campuses is more common than many people realize. About 23% of undergraduates and 12% of graduate students experience food insecurity. Another 12% of undergraduates and 9% of graduate students fall into “marginal” food security, meaning they worry about running out of food even if they haven’t yet. Students juggling tuition, rent, and part-time work often find food is the most flexible line item in their budget, especially those without family financial support.
Veterans and Military Families
Estimates of food insecurity among veterans range widely, from about 6% to 24% depending on the population studied and the time frame measured. Nationally representative surveys place the overall rate between 6.5% and 8.4%, but certain subgroups face far worse. Among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the rate reaches 27%. For women veterans, it’s 28%. Veterans with serious mental illness experience food insecurity at 35%, and among homeless or formerly homeless veterans, nearly half (49%) report it. The transition from military life, where meals are provided, to civilian budgeting can be difficult, especially for those dealing with service-connected injuries or mental health challenges.
Rural vs. Urban Communities
Both rural and urban communities struggle with food insecurity, though for different reasons. Rural households face a rate of 15.4%, slightly above the national average. Limited transportation, fewer grocery stores, and lower average wages all contribute. Urban households in principal cities have a rate of 15.9%, driven by high costs of living and concentrated poverty. Because cities have larger populations, they account for about a third of all food-insecure households nationally, even though rural areas have a comparable percentage rate.
How Food Insecurity Affects Health
Food insecurity doesn’t just mean hunger. It reshapes what people eat. When money is tight, calorie-dense processed foods are cheaper and more accessible than fresh produce, lean protein, and whole grains. Over time, this pattern drives higher rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and certain cancers. People living in neighborhoods without grocery stores and with many fast-food outlets face compounded risk.
The health effects also run through psychological and immune pathways. Chronic stress from not knowing where your next meal will come from raises cortisol levels, disrupts sleep, and worsens mental health conditions like depression and anxiety. These in turn make it harder to manage chronic diseases, creating a cycle where food insecurity and poor health reinforce each other. The burden falls disproportionately on minority populations, widening health disparities that already exist.