This report is the culmination of a multi-state study on the extent to which work supports—policies to ensure families can access basics, such as health care, child care, food and housing—fill in the gaps for families whose jobs offer low wages or inadequate benefits.

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What are those “basic” needs? The JOBS NOW report assesses the cost of food, housing, health care, transportation, child care, clothing and taxes in various regions of the state, and uses that data to develop “budgets” for various family models – single-parent, two-parent, etc.

These are no-frills budgets. JOBS NOW models its food budget, for example, on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Low-Cost family food plan. None of the family budgets includes money for “luxuries” like higher education, retirement savings, vacations or restaurant meals.

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Too many children are hungry in a state that helps feed the world.

If you think childhood hunger is something seen only in places like Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region or drought-stricken Kenya, think again. At Hennepin County Medical Center, as the Minnesota lead investigator for the Children’s Sentinel Assessment Nutrition Program (C-SNAP), I and a national network of pediatricians, child development experts, and public health professionals have evaluated the health of more than 26,000 low-income babies and toddlers in six states, including Minnesota.

What have we learned? That hunger – or food insecurity, the term used by current government agencies and researchers to mean lack of access to enough food for an active and healthy life- is surprisingly common. Household food insecurity in Minnesota has ranged from 21% to 56% over the last eight years in the Hennepin county pediatrics clinics. But it’s not obvious. Hungry children are no more likely to be underweight, normal weight, or overweight than food secure children. In this country, childhood hunger isn’t an eyeball diagnosis.