In Arkansas, between 2019-2021:
- Food insecurity in Arkansas averaged 15%.
- That makes Arkansas the 2nd hungriest state with a food insecurity rate 44% higher than the national average of 10.4%.
- The official poverty rate (which does not account for income from safety-net and tax-support programs such as SNAP, EITC, and others) in the state averaged 15.1%.
- But using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (which does include safety-net and tax-support income), the poverty rate falls to 9.7%. In other words, these programs reduced the poverty rate in Arkansas by 36% and the number of people living in poverty decreased by 161,000.
- SNAP, alone, lifted 87,000 people above the poverty line in Arkansas, including 43,000 children, per year between 2013 and 2017, on average.
