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Earlier this year, Florida’s 17th congressional district, which includes a large portion of Miami’s African-American residents, was ranked the most suffering district in America. Now, a new report claims that it has the highest number of hungry children in the nation. More than half of families with children in the district did not have enough money at some point in the last year to put food on the table.
The report, prepared by Food Research and Action Center, used survey data collected by Gallup. Respondents were specifically asked, “Have there been times in the past twelve months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?”
50.4 percent of families in the 17th district responded yes at some point between 2008 and 2010. The national average is only 18 percent.
29.4 percent of families in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL metro-area overall responded with a yes. That puts South Florida as the 12th metro area most struggling with food hardship.
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Florida has a whole doesn’t do much better either. 30 percent of families say they didn’t have enough money to put food on the table. That puts Florida fourth only behind D.C., Mississippi, and Alabama.
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