BY CAMERON PERRA -- Having enough food to eat has been a long-standing issue in the United States, despite its status as one of the wealthiest countries in the world. With a surplus of resources dedicated to assistance programs and meals served, how can food security still be an issue, despite the amount of social spending dedicated to it?

The US Census Bureau found that in July 2022, 11.9% of households in the United States did not have enough to eat, up from 10.5% in 2019. This is not for lack of resources – the US government spent $183B in 2022 on food and nutrition assistance programs. Food security nonprofits aided in distributing more than 5.3B meals.

Part of the problem may be the way that we think about different types of food security programs. The food security sector is often thought of as a monolith with a one-track approach to helping those in need – typically handing out food to people directly.

But that's not all that food security is – the USDA definition includes not only the ability to access food, but access to nutritionally adequate foods. To capture the multiple dimensions of food security, we break food security down into seven key outcomes.

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