Food Facts – 100 Mile Meal

Food Access and Equality

Facts:

23.5 million Americans do not have access to a supermarket within one mile of their home.
Nationally, low-income ZIP codes have 30 percent more convenience stores, which tend to lack healthy items, than middle-income ZIP codes.

Hunger and Obesity

Facts:

In 2013, Congress cut funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other nutrition entitlements in the Farm Bill by $8 billion over a decade. Because of the cuts, 850,000 families will lose about $90 per month in nutrition-assistance benefits. SNAP benefits in 2014 will average less than $1.40 per person per meal.
Obesity disproportionately affects low-income Americans. According to trend data analyzed in 2013, more than 31 percent of adults (ages 18 and above) who earn less than $25,000 per year were obese, compared with 25.4 percent of those who earn at least $50,000 per year.

Junk Food Marketing

Facts:

During kids’ TV shows, nearly three-fourths of the foods marketed are relatively unhealthful convenience foods, fast foods and sweets.
Companies spent $1.79 billion in 2009 on marketing foods and beverages to children and adolescents ages 2 to 17.

Food Service Workers

Facts:

On the list of the ten lowest-paid occupations in the country, seven are in the restaurant industry. three of these are tipped occupations: counter attendants, servers; and bussers, runners and bartender assistants.
The poverty rate amongst tipped restaurant workers is 21 percents, three times the rate of poverty compared to the country’s workforce in general.

Farm Workers

Facts:

Farm work is the eighth lowest paid job in the country with an average income of between $10,000 and $12,499 per year or about $15,000 to $17,499 per year for a family.
The highest average grade level completed by farm workers is seventh grade, with 13 percent finishing fewer than three years of school and 13 percent finish high school.