Wisconsin’s food insecurity rate was 13.5% in 2024, according to new data from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap project.
That’s up from 11.8% in the prior year.
The group found the state had a “food budget shortfall” of $551 million for 2024, up from $463 million in 2023. This represents the total dollar amount those deemed “food insecure” report needing to buy enough food, adjusted for local food prices, tax and other factors.
Twenty-seven of the state’s 72 counties had food insecurity rates above that of the state overall, with clusters of counties with higher rates in Wisconsin’s central, northeastern and northwestern regions.
Menominee County had the highest rate among any Wisconsin county with 18.6%, and the study estimates $524,000 in additional funding would be needed to meet the food needs of residents. Among hungry residents, just 11% were above the threshold to qualify for SNAP — the state’s foodstamps program — while the other 89% fell below that threshold.
By comparison, 44% of all food insecure people in the state are above the SNAP threshold while 56% had income below the threshold of 200% of the federal poverty level.
The Menominee Indian Reservation shares boundaries with Menominee County, and Native Americans make up more than 82% of the county’s population, according to an earlier UW-Madison Wisconsin Partnership Program report.
In addition to the county’s food insecurity challenges, residents also face high rates for diabetes, coronary heart disease hospitalizations and general socioeconomic hardship, with 27% of the population living below the poverty level.
No other Wisconsin county exceeds 17% food insecurity, according to the Feeding America data.
Milwaukee County comes in at No. 2 on the list of counties with the highest rates of food insecurity with 16.9%. Given the largely urban county’s much larger population, the dollar amount needed to meet residents’ food needs is estimated at $114 million.
Thirty-two percent of food insecure county residents exceed the SNAP eligibility threshold, and the other 68% fall below it.
Meanwhile, the county with the lowest rate of food insecurity is Calumet County with 9.8%, and 54% of its food insecure residents are above the SNAP threshold while 46% are below it. The study estimates $3.7 million would be needed to meet residents’ food needs.
The Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin in a recent release warned of a “significant increase” in the number of food insecure families, children and seniors across the state’s southwestern region.
Within the group’s 16-county service area, a total of 169,310 people of all ages are considered food insecure, marking a 16% increase over the prior year’s findings, according to a separate analysis from the foodbank. The number of children in the area considered food insecure has “risen sharply” by 28% from the previous year, reaching 50,840.
Michelle Orge, the group’s president and executive director, says the latest figures “reinforce what we’re hearing” from its network of local partners, that more families need help in the region.
“Behind these numbers are our neighbors who are having to make difficult choices about how to put food on the table,” Orge said in a statement.
