•Of the more than 20 million children who receive free or reduced-price lunch each school day, less than half receive breakfast and only 10 percent access summer feeding sites. 

•For every 100 school lunch programs, there are only 87 breakfast sites and just 36 summer food program sites.

•About half of all American children will receive SNAP benefits at some point before age 20. Among African-American children, 90 percent will enroll in SNAP before age 20.

•One in seven people are enrolled in SNAP. Nearly half are children. 

•SNAP participation nearly doubled pre-recession levels, an increase of 18 million people. 

•More than 90 percent of SNAP benefits are used up by the third week of the month.

•One in every two babies born in the United States is enrolled in WIC. 

•Although 81.3 percent of eligible infants are enrolled in WIC, the program reaches just 47.3 percent of eligible children ages 1 to 4.

Food Spending

•Low-income households already spend a greater share of their income on food. Food accounts for 16.4 percent of spending for households making less than $10,000 per year compared to the U.S. average of 12.7 percent.

•Participation in federal nutrition programs reduces the risk of girls becoming overweight by increasing access to an adequate, nutritious diet. School-aged girls enrolled in SNAP, school lunch, and school breakfast programs are 68 percent less likely to be overweight than food-insecure girls who do not participate in the programs. 

Poverty

More than one in seven people in the United States lives below the poverty line, which is $22,113 for a family of four in 2010. More than one in five children in the United States lives below the poverty line.

•Most Americans (51.4 percent) will live in poverty at some point before age 65. 
Source: Urban Institute, Transitioning In and Out of Poverty, 2007.

•65 percent of low-income families have at least one working family member, and 79 percent of single mothers who head households work.

•In most areas, a family of four needs to earn twice the poverty line to provide children with basic necessities.
 

•Nationally, more than 44 percent of children live in low-income working families (families who earn less than twice the poverty line).

•A person working full-time at the minimum wage earns about $14,500 a year. The official poverty line for a family of three—one parent with two children—is $17