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Its study is based on interviews with over 62,000 clients served by the FA network, as well as information provided by 37,000 FA agencies - and emergency food providers.
FA's system serves an estimated 37 million people annually, up 46% since 2005, including 33.9 million pantry users, 1.8 million kitchen ones, and 1.3 million in shelters.
About 5.7 million people get emergency food aid from the system, an increase of 27% since 2005, and one in eight Americans (37 million people, including 14 million children and three million seniors) are food insecure, meaning they don't get enough to eat.
In September 2009, the US Census Bureau reported rising poverty, falling incomes, and growing numbers of uninsured US households. Even by the Bureau's conservative estimates, 39.8 million Americans were impoverished, the highest level since 1960, and 17.1 million lived in extreme poverty at below one-half the official threshold.
According to economists, current conditions are far worse than reported and will keep deteriorating ahead, for at least several years.