Tens of millions of Americans feed their families with help from food stamps and subsidized school lunches. A new report from Gallup shows that nearly 20 percent of Americans have struggled this year to pay for food.
Frank Newport is the editor-in-chief at Gallup and joins us for our weekly Attitude Check. He says Gallup surveys 1,000 Americans every day, and one of the daily questions is: “Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?”
Newport says Mississippi has the highest percentage of residents — 25 percent — who responded YES to that question, but he points to the entire South as a region that has struggled with money for food.
North Dakota had the fewest YES responses, with only 9.6 percent of respondents saying they had lacked money to buy food. Newport says, “We’ve all seen the pictures of the huge oil and gas boom repurcussions going on up in North Dakota. Well, it certainly means there are fewer people struggling to buy food.”
Newport says this summer’s drought and the resulting rise in food prices will likely make it even tougher for residents in the South.
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