NEW YORK — A measure used as a proxy for hunger in the United States has fallen to its lowest level since before the Great Recession, the government said, while the number of Americans on food stamps remains high.

About 42.2 million Americans struggled to afford or obtain adequate nutrition at some point in 2015, a 12 percent drop from 2014, the Department of Agriculture said in an annual survey released Wednesday. The decline in ‘‘food insecurity,’’ which indicates risk of hunger rather than actual suffering from it, puts the number at the lowest since 2007, before the financial crisis led to 10 percent unemployment, a jump in poverty, and record federal spending for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly called food stamps.

The percentage of households facing hunger fell to 12.7 percent, down from 14 percent in 2014 and also the lowest since 2007.

Since the recession ended in 2009, unemployment has fallen by more than half, which has helped drive the drop in hunger risk, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Enrollment in food stamps, meanwhile, is still nearly twice the level it was before the slowdown. The most recent data, for May, showed 43.5 million people were receiving aid, down 9 percent from a 2012 peak and the fewest since 2010.

Bloomberg News