Research

The Problem

the status of hunger in Oregon

Currently, 1 in 4 Oregonians are food insecure. Pre-COVID, Oregon’s general population food insecurity rate reflected that 1 in 10 Oregonians were struggling to put food on the table. The rates of food insecurity and hunger (or “very low food security”) in Oregon had been steadily declining and dropped below the US average by 2019. According to a December 2020 report from Professor Mark Edwards at Oregon State University, rates of food insecurity and hunger in Oregon more than doubled in 2020, with an estimated 1 million Oregonians experiencing food insecurity. Meanwhile, due in large part to historical and current systemic injustices, disparities of experience of hunger persist. Communities of color and single mothers experience hunger at rates 2 to 3 times higher than the general population

Check out county by county fact sheets on the status of hunger in your community.

Additional Resources

  • Kaiser Family Foundation: Births financed by Medicaid
  • Map the Meal Gap: Food insecurity and cost of meal by county
  • MIT’s Living Wage Calculation: Cost of living expenses and minimum wage, poverty, living wage by geography
  • Oregon Food Bank’s Hunger Factors: Number clients served, percent who are working, disabled, retired, children
  • Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon: Finding Food Security in Portland, Oregon
  • Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, Analysis: Hunger in Oregon Drops, but Still Remains Persistently High
  • School of Public Policy and Rural Studies Program, Oregon State University: Widespread Declines, Yet Persistent Inequalities: Food Insecurity in Oregon and the U.S. (2015-2017)

Sources

Feeding America, Map the Meal Gap, 2016.
Housing and Urban Development, The 2016 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress, 2017.
Oregon Department of Education, CNP Statistics, 2016-17.
U.S. Census American Fact Finder and American Community Survey, Poverty: 2015, 2016, and 2017.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, Food Security in the U.S., 2017.