An analysis of state health survey data by the Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP) shows that the youngest adults have the highest hunger and food insecurity rates. The OCPP analysis shows that more than a quarter – 27 percent – of Oregon’s youngest adults (aged 18 to 24) lived in a food insecure household in 2002. By contrast, about one in ten adults aged 45 to 54 lived in a food insecure home, and just 6 percent of Oregon’s senior citizens were in food insecure households (Figure 1). Less than two percent of seniors lived in homes where someone went hungry at times during the last year, a rate that nearly one-eighth the rate among the youngest adults.

Read Young Adults with Children Likely to be in Food Insecure Households (PDF).