WOW! Berkshires Ranks Pretty High On List For Food Insecure Kids

Here's a question, Berkshire County: Do you know the definition of the phrase "food insecurity"? Apparently, it means "the condition of finding yourself without consistent access to nutritious, affordable food".

And, food insecurity is a continuing(and growing) problem not just across the United States, but worldwide. More and more people and families face food insecurity every single day.

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Households that were already suffering food insecurity were put under even more hardship with the COVID pandemic. The bottom line, millions of children will experience food insecurity in 2022 according to the nonprofit organization Feeding America.

Recently, the expert data analysis website Stacker came up with a list of counties in the Bay State with the highest rate of food-insecure children and you may be surprised where Berkshire County places on that list.

Stacker analyzed data from Feeding America to come up with the final results and, perhaps surprisingly to many, Berkshire County ranks pretty high up there when it comes to the rate of food-insecure children.

Beautiful Berkshire County, out of the 14 counties in Massachusetts, comes in at #3, with only Suffolk County and Hampden County ranking higher at #2 and #1 respectively. I don't know about you but I was honestly surprised when I saw those results.

According to Stacker, the child food insecurity rate in Berkshire County is 12.3%. The number of food-insecure children is 2,660. The percentage of children in households with income below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level(FPL) is 71% with the percentage of children in households with income above 185% of the FPL is 29%.

For more on the study including where the other 13 counties in the Commonwealth place on the list, please visit Stacker's website here. It's pretty fascinating.