(All population figures are 2004 estimates, unless otherwise noted)

Total Population - 3.39 million, including:

• Approximately 833,000 children (< 18 years old)
• Approximately 437,000 elderly adults (age 65 and older)

Median household income - $55,590*

• 10% of population live in poverty
• Approximately 102,000 children live in poverty
• Approximately 35,000 elderly live in poverty

Food Insecurity Rate - 8.6%*

Food insecurity is defined as having “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.” The USDA’s food security scale classifies food insecurity as both with and without hunger.

*Three-year average, 2002-2004

Source: America's Second Harvest, Hungry in America 2006

According to End Hunger Connecticut, 283,000 Connecticut residents were “food insecure” in 2006, with more than 100,000 children younger than 12 hungry or at risk of hunger. Together, the state’s two food banks help feed more than 350,000 people each year through more than 1,000 food-assistance programs.

The following is provided by the Connecticut Food Bank in New Haven, which supports food assistance programs in six of the state’s eight counties – helping feed approximately 30,800 individuals per week. Of clients and they served in 2005:

• 33% were children younger than 18
• 7% were ederly
• 42% receive Food Stamp Program benefits

• 33% of client households include at least one employed adult
• 75% had incomes below the official poverty level in the previous month
• 81% of client households were considered “food insecure”

Among household with children

• 83% were "food insecure"
• 33% were "food insecure with hunger"

• 42% report having to choose between buying food and paying utility bills
• 34% have had to choose between buying food and paying the rent or mortgage
• 30% have had to choose between buying food and paying for health care

The following is provided by Bloomfield-based Foodshare, which supports food assistance programs in Hartford and Tolland counties that help feed 100,000 clients a year – approximately 10 percent of Greater Hartford’s total population. Of those:

• 40% are children younger than 18
• 10% are elderly
• 27% of households include at least one employed adult
• 75% of households had incomes below the official poverty level in the previous month