In Maryland, between 2019-2021:
- Food insecurity in Maryland averaged 8.7%.
- Maryland’s food insecurity rate was 16% lower than the national average of 10.4%.
- The poverty rate in Maryland in 2021 (using the Supplemental Poverty Measure) was 9.6%, which was 1.8 percentage points higher than the nation overall (7.8%).
- Maryland’s poverty rate is high compared to the rest of the nation in large part because of the high cost of housing. Four in 10 low-income people in Maryland are homeless or pay over half their income for rent.
- SNAP, alone, lifted 99,000 people above the poverty line in Maryland, including 49,000 children, per year between 2013 and 2017, on average.
