In Stratford, N.H., an exodus of employers has left residents in a tricky position.
With jobs hard to come by, the community in the state saw the highest percentage of its population enrolled in a food assistance program, according to data analyzed by the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute.
About 19 percent of Stratford’s 657 residents enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. That’s three times more than the statewide average of 5.5 percent of residents enrolled in the program.
“There are a lot of hungry people,”said Mike Pelletier, a pastor in Stratford who helped start a new food pantry this year to address the problem. He described employers departing in recent years, from the closure of a plywood mill to the shuttering of a local Carhartt outlet.
”There are no jobs,” he said of the town in northern New Hampshire, about 40 miles from the Canadian border.
Stratford’s unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in August, nearly 2 points higher than the statewide rate of 3 percent, according to a report from New Hampshire Employment Security.
Plus, Pelletier said, as the community grapples with drug use, grandparents are often put in the position of raising their grandchildren, an extra financial burden when it comes to affording food on top of other household necessities.
Only those earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for SNAP, so parts of the state where more people are living in poverty are likely to have more people enrolled, according to Laura Milliken, executive director of New Hampshire Hunger Solutions, an anti-hunger nonprofit. For a family of three, that would be $51,640.
Milliken pointed to the higher rates of poverty in Coos County, the northernmost part of the state, as one factor driving higher-than-average enrollment in SNAP in some towns.
“I believe Stratford has among the highest unemployment rates in the state as well, so it doesn’t surprise me that people there would be experiencing higher levels of food insecurity,” she said.
On the other end of the spectrum, there were 13 municipalities and townships without any residents enrolled in SNAP in the year ending on June 30. That included places with very small populations, like Dixville, N.H., home to just six residents, according to population estimates from the US Census Bureau.
Also remarkably low was New Castle, N.H., on the Seacoast. Home to about 1,000 residents, none received assistance in the year that was analyzed.
This story first appeared in Globe NH | Morning Report, our free newsletter focused on the news you need to know about New Hampshire, including great coverage from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles from other places. If you’d like to receive it via e-mail Monday through Friday, you can sign up here.
Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.