How do you calculate the dollars needed and the meal costs?
Using actual food sales data, NielsenIQ created a county-level multiplier to reflect the local cost of food. To develop the average cost of a meal, we use this multiplier to weight the national average amount spent on a meal by the food secure - $3.13. We also use the county-level multiplier to weight the national average of additional money a food insecure person reports needing per week to meet their food needs - $17.64. To calculate the total additional money required to meet food needs in 2019, we multiply the weekly amount by the number of food insecure people in the selected