WASHINGTON, Feb. 29 (UPI) -- Twenty-five percent of the households in Mississippi report food hardship, the worst in the nation, a report by a non-profit group said.
A report by the Food Research and Action Center found in 2011, 30 states have more than 1 in 6 households reporting there were times they didn't have enough money to buy food that they or their families needed. North Dakota had the least reporting food hardship, but 10 percent of the households in North Dakota struggled with food hardship, the report said.
Researchers at the Food Research and Action Center analyzed data collected by Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index project, which interviewed 352,789 households in 2011.
Nationally, 18.6 percent of respondents reported food hardship in 2011, up from 18 percent in 2010 and the highest annual rate in the four years that Food Research and Action Center tracked the data, the report said.
"Rising food prices, continuing high unemployment and underemployment, and flat food stamp benefit allotments all contributed to the high food hardship rate in 2011," Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, said in a statement. "Particularly challenging was the increase in food inflation, especially for the foods the government uses to construct the Thrifty Food Plan, its cheapest diet. Food stamp beneficiaries lost more than 6 percent of their food purchasing power because of this increase."
