Southeast Missouri has highest rates of hunger in state, made worse by COVID-19

Butler, Ripley, Dunklin and Wayne counties are among 10 counties in the state of Missouri with the highest rates of hunger among residents, according to a recently released study.

The recently released Map the Meal Gap, an annual study on the prevalence of hunger, showed Southeast Missouri has some of the highest rates of food insecurity in the state. The effect of these high rates of hunger was only made worse by the coronavirus pandemic and resulting joblessness.

Overall, the rate of food insecurity in Southeast Missouri is 16.1-20.2% for children, according to the study. Food insecurity means the household lacks the resources to provide enough food for a healthy diet.

“We’ve known for a long time that we serve some of the poorest counties in the state,” said food bank Chief Executive Office Joey Keys. “In fact, seven of the top 10 counties in Missouri for high rates of hunger are in Southeast Missouri Food Bank’s service area. When COVID-19 hit and people began losing jobs, a tough situation became even worse. So, when our rates of hunger are adjusted to take into account the increases in unemployment and economic hardship, they increase by 5 to 10%.”

Pemiscot County in the Missouri Bootheel has the highest rate of hunger in the state with 21.6%, or one in five people, living in a home that does not have access to enough healthy food. The child hunger rate in Pemiscot County is 27.5%, or almost one in three children who may not know where their next meal will come from. When adjusted for COVID-19, those figures increase to 26.4% for overall hunger and 35.9% for child hunger.

Other counties posting high rates of hunger are:

• Ripley County, No. 2 in the state, 20.6% for overall hunger, 27.8% for childhood hunger. COVID-adjusted rates are 25.2% and 35.8% respectively.

• Dunklin County, No. 4, 19.9% for overall hunger, 25.5% for childhood hunger. COVID adjusted: 25% and 34.4% respectively when adjusted for COVID.

• Wayne County, No. 5, 19.9% for overall hunger, 25% for childhood hunger. COVID adjusted: 25% and 34.1% respectively.

• New Madrid County, No. 6, 20.18.8% for overall hunger, 24.6% for childhood hunger. COVID adjusted: 23.6% and 33.1% respectively.

• Mississippi County, No. 8, 18.5% for overall hunger, 22.5% for childhood hunger. COVID adjusted: 24.1% and 32.5% respectively.

• Butler County, No. 10, 18.2% for overall hunger, 19.4% for childhood hunger. COVID adjusted: 23.4% and 29% respectively.

“The study shows many people in Southeast Missouri, especially children, are dealing with hunger on a regular basis,” Keys said. “This information coupled with another recent report on senior hunger, helps us see where the need is greatest so we can develop strategies to address those needs. That often includes distributing more food in those counties, including holding mobile distributions, doing special distributions through schools for the families of students or expanding our weekend backpack program for kids.”

Southeast Missouri Food Bank supplies food to 140 food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless and domestic violence shelters, and senior centers in its 16-county coverage, which extends south to the Arkansas border, north to Ste. Genevieve, east to the Illinois state line and west to Van Buren and Carter County. The food bank also provides monthly boxes of food to 5,000 eligible senior citizens through the Commodity Supplemental Feeding Program, operates The Emergency Feeding Assistance Program for eligible families, and mobile food pantries on evenings and weekends for working parents.

“A lot of the people we serve may have a job, but they don’t make enough to make ends meet every month, so they need a little help,” Keys said. “Others may be temporarily unemployed because of a layoff or plant shutdown. We also see a lot of veterans and senior citizens who may have had a serious health condition that depleted their nest egg or they’re raising grandchildren. Hunger can be the result of a lot of life circumstances.”

“Map the Meal Gap shows once again that not one single county in this country is free from hunger,” said Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, chief executive officer of Feeding America. “In the decade before the pandemic, we made progress in finally returning to pre-Great Recession levels of food insecurity, though that number was still regrettably high. That fragile progress has given way under the weight of this crisis. The Feeding America network of food banks knows all too well the precarious nature of household budgets. We also know that the work that we do has great potential to help and we cannot make meaningful progress alone. Our vision is an America where no one is hungry. Join us in making that mission a reality for the tens of millions of people out there who need us now more than ever.”

Map the Meal Gap 2020 uses data from USDA, the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics and food price data and analysis provided by Nielsen, a global measurement and data analytics company. The study is supported by Conagra Brands Foundation and Nielsen.

Keys encouraged the public to help address hunger in their community by volunteering at a local food pantry or the SEMO Food Bank, donate to the food bank online at semofoodbank.org, and encourage legislators to address hunger issues at the state and federal levels.