USDA

At some point last year, about 17 million U.S. households had some difficulty feeding everyone in their family.

That amounts to 14.5 percent of U.S. households, according to a report released last month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The percentage of households who experienced food insecurity in 2010 was virtually unchanged from 2009. But it has risen by about 3 percentage points since 2007, the year the country officially went into recession.

The report classifies people as food insecure if they’ve had trouble feeding their family at some point during the year.

A subset of that group, comprised of about 6.4 million households, were classified as having very low food security. That means that at some point during the year someone in the house went hungry.

The report found that about 16.2 million children were living in food-insecure households. Still, the report noted that children are often shielded from hunger by the adults in the home.

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The recession may be officially over, but one of the most worrisome effects of the weak economy remains: Tens of millions of Americans don’t have enough money for food.

More than 44 million Americans were receiving food stamps in February, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And participation in the so-called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, has increased by more than 60 percent since the recession began in December of 2007.

The Wall Street Journal has a new graphic that breaks down SNAP usage by state. According to the graphic, Mississsippi, Oregon and Tennessee have the highest percentage of food stamp usage, while Wyoming ranks lowest.

In Alabama, the state so recently devastated by a string of tornadoes, 18 percent of residents are receiving food stamps, according to the Wall Street Journal’s data. The Journal’s graphic is based on data from the USDA and the Census Bureau.