The hidden nature of hunger and poverty makes us less aware of its prevalence in the suburbs, but hunger does exist in the suburbs and it is growing.  

The growth in poverty and hunger in the suburbs is caused by the lure of job growth, the revitalization of central cities making city life too expensive for many poor people, and the creation of cheaper housing in "inner ring" suburbs, as middle class people move further out. 


Here are some unsettling facts:

Facts

• • In 2006, the prevalence of household food insecurity in suburban areas was 9% (4.2 million households), and the prevalence of very low food security was 3.2% (1.5 million households) [i].
• America's Second Harvest - The Nation's Food Bank Network, the nation's largest hunger-relief charity, estimates that 42.6% of all clients served reside in rural/suburban areas.  26.9% of households with children reside in suburban areas and 28.5% of households with children reside in rural areas [ii].
• Suburban poverty appears to have distinct regional patterns.  Fourteen of the fifteen suburbs with the highest poverty rates in 2000 were located in the Southern or Western regions of the country [iii].
• The poverty rate for people living in the suburban areas was 9.1% in 2006 [iv].

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[i] Nord, Mark, M. Andrews, S. Carlson. United States Department of Agriculture/Economic Research Service. Household Food Security in the United States, 2006. November 2007.

[ii] Mathematica Policy Research.  America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network.  Hunger in America 2006.  March 2006. [Table 15.4.1 and Table 5.2.1 [PDF] ]

[iii] Berube, Alan, W.H. Frey.  The Brookings Institution/Center on Urban and Metropolitan Poverty.  A Decade of Mixed Blessings: Urban and Suburban Poverty in Census 2000.  August 2002.

[iv] DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, B.D. Proctor, R.J. Mills.  U.S. Census Bureau.  Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006.