What Is Food Security?

This article defines food security using the USDA's official standard — access by all household members, at all times, to enough food for an active, healthy life — and explains the two tiers of food insecurity (low and very low), the distinction between food insecurity and hunger, the national rate (86.3% of U.S. households in 2024), and the local context in Saginaw, Michigan, where nearly 50% of families fall into the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) category. It also addresses food security as a social determinant of health.

What Is Food Security?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food security, at the household level, as access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Two conditions must both be true for a household to meet this standard:

  1. Nutritionally adequate, safe food is readily available.
  2. The household has an assured ability to acquire it in socially acceptable ways — through a regular grocery budget, not through emergency food supplies or other crisis-driven coping strategies.

This definition is the standard used by the USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) and is the benchmark against which U.S. household food access is measured nationally.

National Food Security Statistics (2024)

According to USDA Economic Research Service data for 2024:

  • 86.3% of U.S. households (approximately 115.7 million) were food secure throughout the year.
  • The remaining 13.7% experienced food insecurity at some point during 2024.

These figures represent the most current nationally representative measure of household food access in the United States.

Food Insecurity: Definition and Two Tiers

Food insecurity is the absence of food security — limited or uncertain access to enough food due to a lack of money or other resources. The USDA further distinguishes two tiers:

Tier Description
Low food security Reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet, but with little or no reduction in actual food intake.
Very low food security Disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake for one or more household members.

Both tiers represent meaningful hardship, even though the impacts on consumption differ. Neither tier is equivalent to hunger.

Food Insecurity Is Not the Same as Hunger

A critical conceptual distinction: hunger and food insecurity are not synonymous.

  • Hunger is an individual-level physiological condition — physical discomfort or distress caused by a lack of food.
  • Food insecurity is a household-level economic condition — uncertain or insufficient access to food due to resource constraints.

A household can be food insecure without any member experiencing hunger in the immediate, physical sense. Conversely, hunger can result from food insecurity, but the two are measured and defined separately. The USDA does not directly measure hunger; it measures food security status.

Why Earning a Paycheck Does Not Guarantee Food Security

Income matters for food security, but the relationship is more complex than it may appear. Many households that fall short of food security:

  • Earn too much to qualify for programs such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), and
  • Earn too little to consistently afford groceries once rent, utilities, transportation, and health care costs are met.

This is the population the ALICE framework (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) was designed to describe: working households with incomes above the poverty line but below the cost of basic necessities.

Food Security in Saginaw, Michigan

Saginaw Community Food Club operates specifically to address this gap locally. In Saginaw:

  • Nearly 50% of Saginaw families fall into the ALICE category — working but without reliable food security.
  • These households are often ineligible for traditional assistance programmes yet cannot consistently cover grocery costs after other essential expenses.

Saginaw Community Food Club exists to serve these households, providing a community-based model to close the gap between earned income and food access.

Contact: 310 Meredith, Saginaw, MI | (989) 529-3275

Food Security as a Social Determinant of Health

Public health research and frameworks — including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Healthy People 2030 — classify food security as a social determinant of health. This means:

  • Food insecurity does not exist in isolation; it competes directly with a household's ability to pay for medication, housing, and utilities.
  • The absence of food security is independently linked to worse health outcomes over time, even when controlling for other factors.

Building food security is therefore also a strategy for improving community health — not merely a matter of addressing a food budget shortfall.

Key Sources

  • USDA Economic Research Service — Food Security in the U.S.: Measurement
  • USDA Economic Research Service — Food Security in the U.S.: Key Statistics & Graphics (2024 data)
  • Healthy People 2030, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (odphp.health.gov)
  • ALICE Framework (United Way)