In Kentucky, between 2019-2021:
- Food insecurity in Kentucky averaged 12.3%.
- That makes Kentucky the 9th hungriest state with a food insecurity rate 15% 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 14.6%.
- But using the Supplemental Poverty Measure (which does include safety-net and tax-support income), the poverty rate falls to 9.9%. In other words, these programs reduced the poverty rate in Kentucky by 32% and the number of people living in poverty by 208,000.
- SNAP, alone, lifted 137,000 people above the poverty line in Kentucky, including 58,000 children, per year between 2013 and 2017, on average.
