THE WORKING POOR, HUNGRY FOR MORE.By: Angel Rene Soria Cortes

What is it? (What are they?)

• Food Security: Food security, for a household, means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active and healthy life.

• Food Insecurity: Food insecurity is limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.

• The Working Poor: The working poor are people who spend 27 weeks or more in a year “in the labor force” either working or looking for work but whose incomes fall below the poverty level or very close to it.

Food insecurity

Food security

The Working Poor

WHO ARE FOOD INSECURE PEOPLE?

• Food insecure individuals make up:… • 48.1 million Americans • 6% of households (6.9 million households) experienced very low food

security.• Households with children reported food insecurity at a significantly higher

rate than those without children, 19% compared to 12%.• Households that had higher rates of food insecurity than the national

average included households with children (19%), especially households with children headed by single women (35%) or single men (22%), Black non-Hispanic households (26%) and Hispanic households (22%).

WHO ARE THE WORKING POOR? • The working poor are…• 13% of Blacks; 13% of Hispanics; 6% of Whites; 5% of  Asians• 8% of women; 6% of men• 19% of the labor force with less than a high school diploma; 9% of high

school graduates with no college education;  5% for those with an associate’s degree and 2% for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher

• Most likely young: rates were highest for 16 to 19 year olds (11%) and 20 to 24 year olds (13%) and lowest for those over 65 (2%)

• 16% of part-time workers; 4% for those employed full-time

THIRD STREET COMMUNITY CENTER DEMOGRAPHICS/STATISTICS

• 87.5% Hispanic • 7.5% African American • 5% Caucasian • 90% qualify for the Free Lunch Program • 80% of children's parents, both mother and father, work (more than 27 weeks a year• Some families live very close or even at the poverty line • Just to give you guys an idea:• A four-person family with two adults and two children is poor with annual cash

income below $23,283; the threshold for a four-person family with a single parent and three children is $23,364. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Weighted Average Poverty Thresholds, 2012, released in September 2013.

• This Is Elias• A real polite kid• He is a Second grader • Weighing 100 pound or more • He says he likes to eat “tortas, burritos,

chips, and stuff.” • He doesn’t like greens like broccoli• Both of his parents work from early

morning until 5:30PM • His parents struggle to get him to eat

healthy, but his parents themselves are not in the best shape either.

• Is Elias Food insecure, or is he Food Insecure?• Is it his fault?

CITATIONS• Dolnick, Sam. “The Obesity-Hunger Paradox.” Acting out Culture: Readings for Critical

Inquiry. 3rd ed. Ed. James S. Miller. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015. 219-223. Print.

•  Kendall, Nicole, Erika. “No Myths Here: Food Stamps, Food Deserts, and Food Scarcity.” Acting out Culture: Reading for Critical Inquiry. 3rd ed. Ed. James S. Miller. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015. 210-213. Print.

• "Institute for Research on Poverty." What Are Poverty Thresholds and Poverty

Guidelines? N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2015. <http://www.irp.wisc.edu/faqs/faq1.htm>.

• "U.S. Department of Agriculture." U.S. Department of Agriculture. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2015. <http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome>.

•  "UC Davis Center for Poverty Research." Who Are the Working Poor? -. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2015. <http://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/who-are-working-poor>.