Hunger and Poverty Facts about the District of Columbia

Every day in the District of Columbia, one out of eight households faces a constant struggle against hunger.

• 12.5 percent of households in the District of Columbia struggled with hunger from 2004-06. That’s an increase from previous years. From 2001 – 2003, nine percent were considered to be food insecure.
• Among the 12.5 percent of District of Columbia households struggling with hunger, 3.8 percent were considered to have “very low food security,” a USDA term that means one or more people in the household were hungry over the course of the year because they couldn’t afford enough food.
• One-fifth of D.C. residents live in poverty, and more than 37,000 are children. That’s one out of every three children.
• More than 57,000 D.C. residents live in extreme poverty. For a family of four, that means they live on less than $29 a day for all their expenses – including food, rent, and transportation.
• Food access issues continue to challenge D.C. residents. Residents of Wards 2 and 3 have three times more access to supermarkets than residents in Wards 1, 4, 6, 7 — although the latter have a comparable or a greater number of residents.
• District residents without a supermarket in their neighborhood can pay as much as $80 round trip for transportation to a store.
• At every supermarket in the District, foods with high nutritional value such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and dairy products are more expensive to purchase than highly processed and less healthy items.