Elizabeth Smart thread, August 24-31, 2002

Is Utah's hunger rate near top? It depends

By Norma Harrison
Deseret News staff writer

A new study labeling Utah among those states with the highest rate of hunger in the late 1990s has some economic experts skeptical, while low income advocates say the numbers back up what they are seeing on the streets.

As with most statistical analyses, the perspective depends upon with whom you talk.

According to the study, Utah went from being ranked 28th nationally for its hunger rate in 1996 to 1998 to fourth worst in the nation from 1998 through 2000 ? the largest jump of any state. Oregon, Washington and New Mexico ranked as the top three in the most recent study. And in the category of "food insecurity" - not knowing where or how the next meal will be found or paid for - Utah jumped from 24th in the nation to 11th worst.

That means 4.5 percent of Utah's households reported suffering from hunger during those years, and 12.5 percent considered themselves food insecure, the study by the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

Then again, they are two different sets of statistics: one compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; the second by the U.S. Census Bureau. And both sets of numbers were crunched by a third party - the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

Those reportedly record highs came during the years when Utah's poverty rate was below the national average, and when the state's economy - as was true of much of the nation - was thriving, according to Wells Fargo Bank, which provides a tabulated diary of Utah's cost-of-living expenses annually in categories that range from transportation to health-care costs, food, clothing, education and housing.

Utah's historic reputation for providing free meals to needy families and the homeless - through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, state human welfare services and civic organizations - casts a pall of doubt that there would be such a big jump in those who suddenly found themselves more needy than usual, economists and analysts say.

"I've studied this for over 30 years and have found we certainly do have those people who are struggling economically, but I believe that if we combine the human welfare services in Utah . . . I would think we have a better cumulative support system as anywhere else in the country . . . and certainly at that particular time they're talking about - from 1998 to 2000 - when anyone who wanted to find a job in Utah could find a job," said Kelly Matthews, economist and executive vice president of Wells Fargo Bank.

Jan Crispin-Little, a senior analyst at the University of Utah Bureau of Economic and Business Research, also questioned the validity of comparing two separate studies that, while addressing the same issue, likely asked the questions about hunger and food-purchasing security in different ways.

"I mean, just look at the term 'food insecurity' and the way they defined it in the study. It says: "Food security refers to access to enough food at all times for an active and health lifestyle," including at a minimum the readily availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods and to be able to acquire them in socially acceptable ways, meaning not having to resort to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing or other coping strategies.

"When you read that definition," Crispin-Little said, "it's hard to tell what that means. Does it mean people not being able to find or buy food, or does it mean making enough money to provide nutritionally for their families?"

While the state's poor ranking also surprised food pantry workers, they say they did have an inkling of things weren't right when an increase in numbers asking for food during the good years of the late 1990s. And a closer look after the study came out provided even more, tell-tale evidence of the bad news.

Food pantries across the state have witnessed an increase of 114 percent in families having to rely on the free food doled out by the state's food banks since 1995, said Gina Cornea, who as executive director of the low-income advocacy group Utahns Against Hunger tracks how many families Utah food banks serve annually.

"We're also seeing an increase in the number of people using emergency food pantries more than once a month, an 88 percent increase in that category alone," she said.

The Salvation Army's Family Services, which in Salt Lake City runs a food pantry, soup kitchen and clothing outlet, in the past nine months alone has seen an increase to 3,371 families accessing those services compared with 1,267 families in 2001, said the organization's spokeswoman, Katherine Scott.

Rachel Flashcube, pantry director for the state's largest food bank, the Crossroads Urban Center, said she is at a loss to explain the increase. "It's been going on the past two years and I don't exactly know why it's happening," she said of the 35 percent increase in families needing supplemental groceries over the past year. "Some days we're seeing 300 people a day."

Bill Crime of Utah Issues, an advocacy group for Utah's working poor, said the state has witnessed the paradox of a good economy in which some parents still can't afford enough food before.

"The reality is that low-income people did benefit from the economic boom, incomes went up for everyone in all economic strata during the years studied," he said. "The problem low-income people had during those years is their incomes didn't increase as fast as housing prices, and housing-price increases are sort of the paradox of economic growth for low-income people in this state."

"You can simultaneously have income growth and still lose ground and find yourself without enough money for food if housing prices, the need for child care, transportation costs and health-care costs are rising faster than inflation.

"Not all of those costs rose faster than inflation from 1998 to 2000, but the housing and health-care costs did rise faster than inflation," he continued. "The resulting gap means you can actually have your poverty rate go down and the number of people who find themselves without adequate food go up."

And food banks in Utah don't require people to prove they are below the poverty level, he added, because they realize that just because wages earned by working-poor adults rise above the federal poverty level, that does not mean they have enough left over financially for an adequate supply of food monthly.

During the three years studied, the Census Bureau asked the heads of 45,000 households in the United States whether their families suffered reduced food intake and hunger for children and adults due to lack of money, and whether the heads of households worried about running out of food with no money to buy more. In Utah, 1,449 heads of households responded to the census survey.

Researchers at the center then took the responses related to hunger and analyzed the results, state by state, and found that when compared to what the U.S. Department of Agriculture found in a similar survey from 1996 to 1998, Utah's hunger rate had worsened significantly, bumping the state up 24 spaces. In the category of "food insecurity" the state rate climbed 13 places in the rankings.

"That's a big change for Utah in so few years. It surprised even us," said Ashley Sullivan, a research analyst at Brandeis University's Center on Hunger and Poverty and co-author of the report, which she said was calculated to have a 90 percent confidence rate. "With the economy worsening over the past year, you have to wonder what the next set of rankings will show."

Is Utah's hunger rate near top? It depends