Food insecure households experience disruptions in the quality and quantity of the household food supply due to a lack of resources. They are struggling to make ends meet.

I wanted to create a visualization that shows the stark differences in rates of food insecurity over time and by region and state. Typically, national-level estimates get the spotlight because we all want one number that summarizes the issue. What I think happens though, is that variation gets put in the background and meaningful differences between regions and states are overlooked.

Here I put state and regional variation in the spotlight. I also respect the national perspective, by comparing states to the national average. The challenge was putting all 50 states (and DC!) and the seven regions in one graph.

Download the GIF and the individual graphs for 2003-2005; 2006-2008; 2009-2011; 2012-2014; 2015-2017; and 2018-2020.

Analysis done using R and RStudio.