BY BTL STAFF
LOS ANGELES – A new study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law has found that 27 percent of LGBT adults experienced a time in the last year when they did not have enough money for the food that they or their families needed.
LGBT adults and adults in same-sex couples often experience food insecurity and participate in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) at higher rates than non-LGBT adults and adults in different-sex couples. Using data from four representative, population-based surveys, the authors found that some groups of LGBT adults – women, certain racial and ethnic minorities, unmarried adults, and adults with children in the home – are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity.
"Contrary to the stereotype that LGBT people are affluent, many do not have the resources to access the food that they and their families need," said Taylor Brown, one of the authors of the study. "Policy makers and anti-hunger organizations need to include LGBT people when considering issues of poverty, homelessness, and hunger."
The study, titled "Food Insecurity and SNAP Participation in the LGBT Community," by Brown, Adam P. Romero and Gary J. Gates, updates previous findings and provides further evidence of the disparities experienced by LGBT people.
Key findings from the study include:
More than one in four LGBT people, approximately 2.2 million – experienced a time in the last year when they did not have enough money for the food that they or their families needed, compared to 17 percent of non-LGBT adults.
Twenty-seven percent of LGBT adults, ages 18-44, participated in SNAP compared to 20 percent of non-LGBT adults in the same age range.
Food insecurity is not distributed evenly in the LGBT community. Among LGBT people, certain racial and ethnic minorities (42 percent among African-Americans, 33 percent among Hispanics, and 32 percent among American Indians and Alaskan Natives), women (31 percent), unmarried individuals (30 percent), and those raising children (33 percent) are particularly likely to report not having enough money for the food that they or their families needed at some point in the last year.
LGBT adults are 1.62 times more likely than non-LGBT adults, on average, to report not having enough money for the food that they or their families needed at some point in the last year.
Adults in same-sex couples are 1.58 times more likely than different-sex couples to have participated in SNAP in the past year.
The study was made possible with a grant from the ConAgra Foods Foundation. To read the whole study visit http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/lgbt-food-insecurity-2016/.
