Facts & Research
NYC SUPERMARKET SHORTAGE FACTS
NEW YORK CITY needs more supermarkets. NYC Department of City Planning reported in 2008 that the City’s supermarket shortage affects 3 million New Yorkers who do not have access to healthy, affordable food and quality supermarket jobs. Low-income neighborhoods have the highest need.
There are 11,600 food retailers in NYC
o 550 are traditional grocery stores that carry healthy, affordable food.
o 10,000 are bodegas.
o 800 are pharmacies like Rite Aid and Walgreens.
Without access to healthy, affordable food, working-class and minority
New Yorkers are ravaged by diet-related illnesses like diabetes and obesity.
Diabetes disproportionately affects low-income people, minorities, and seniors.
o Rates are three times higher for poor New Yorkers, compared to those making $52,000/year affordable food.
o Rates are two times higher for Blacks and Latinos compared to Whites and Asians.
o Rates are two times higher for seniors people older than 60 compared to those between 40 and 59.
These groups are unjustly denied access to quality, affordable foods. According to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the presence of a supermarket reduces the prevalence of overweight and obese residents. Only 8% of Black Americans live in a census tract with at least one supermarket; 31% of White Americans live in a census tract with a supermarket . Without a supermarket nearby, lower-income New Yorkers cannot purchase the healthy foods offered by bodegas, which are typically overpriced. And older New Yorkers have an especially hard time traveling long distances to far-away supermarkets. Meanwhile, all New Yorkers can benefit from good, unionized supermarket jobs which allow individuals to succeed and communities to prosper.
Lack of access to healthy, affordable foods is making New Yorkers sick
• More than half of adult New Yorkers are overweight (34%) or obese (22%), and nearly half of all elementary school children (43%) and Head Start children (42%) in New York City are overweight or obese. society stigmatizes this condition and causes people to feel a serious shame, self-blame, low self-esteem and depression.
• In the past 10 years, the number of people with diabetes in NYC has more than doubled. An estimated 530,000 adult New Yorkers know they have diabetes. For every two people who have diabetes, there is another person who has it and doesn't yet know it, suggesting another 265,000 New Yorkers with diabetes. NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Increased rates of poverty contribute to the number of households experiencing food insecurity.
• 1.3 million New Yorkers (one in six) live in food insecure households, an increase of 24 percent since the release of Hunger Safety Net 2004 report.
• The city's emergency food programs estimated an 11% growth in need from 2005 to 2006, on top of 6% growth in the previous year. Because these agencies were unable to obtain enough food, money, staff, and volunteers to meet their growing need, nearly half (46%) were forced to ration food by turning people away, reducing portion sizes, and/or limiting hours of operations.
References
NYC Dept. of City Planning. “Going to Market: New York City’s Neighborhood Grocery Store and Supermarket Shortage”
Figures from “Eating well in Harlem: How Available is Healthy Food.” A Report from the East and Central Harlem District Public Health Office
Kimberly Morland, PhD, Ana V. Diez Roux, MD, PhD, Steve Wing, PhD. 2006. “Supermarkets, Other Food Stores, and Obesity: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Morland. “The Contextual Effect of the Local Food Environment on Residents’ Diets,” American Journal of Public Health. November 2002, Vol. 92, No. 11
Bernhardt, Annette. McGrath, Siobhan. DeFilippis, James. “Unregulated Work in the Grocery and Supermarket Industry in New York City,” pp 45-48, from Unregulated Work in the Global City: Employment and Labor Law Violations in New York City.” Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
NYSDOH. “Obesity-related Diseases.” September 2005.
Hunger Safety Net 2007: A Food Poverty Focus (HSN 07) Hunger Safety Net 2007. New York City Food Bank Policy Paper
“Rising Food Lines, Sinking Economy Increase in NYC Hunger is Early Proof of Economic Slow-Down” Annual Hunger Survey New York City Coalition Against Hunger. November 2007