Food Insecurity Rises for the Second Year in a Row

Food insecurity increased in 2023, from 12.8 percent in 2022 to 13.5 percent in 2023, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) latest food insecurity report finds. Food insecurity has risen two years in a row, reversing a downward trend; food insecurity rates had fallen to a two-decade low in 2021, when significant relief measures, such as expanded food assistance benefits and an expanded Child Tax Credit, were in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The rise in food hardship shows that Congress should protect and improve upon policies that help families afford a healthy diet.

In 2023, 33.6 million adults and 13.8 million children lived in food-insecure households, compared to 30.8 million adults and 13.4 million children in 2022. More households had difficulty acquiring food due to lack of resources, as they experienced the impact of the expiration of pandemic-related benefits and high food prices in 2023.

  

Food insecurity rates in 2023 increased overall for households, a statistically significant increase from 2022. Nearly 1 in 5 (17.9 percent) households with children were food insecure in 2023, statistically unchanged from the rate (17.3 percent) in 2022. Food insecurity rates increased for all racial and ethnic groups, but only the increase for white households was statistically significant.

Substantial racial inequities in food hardship persisted, with Black, Latino, and Native American households experiencing rates of food insecurity at least twice as high as white, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander households. These inequities reflect the impact of structural barriers rooted in systemic racism, other forms of discrimination, and poverty, all of which make it harder for many people of color to afford food.

  

Other studies corroborate the USDA’s findings: a recent Urban Institute report on food security notes that 27 percent of adults reported food insecurity in 2023, up from nearly 25 percent in 2022 (a statistically significant increase), and that the increase in food insecurity primarily affected lower-income households.

The rise in food insecurity coincided with declines in federal food assistance and a period of rapid food inflation. A CBPP analysis of USDA administrative data finds that SNAP benefits (including Pandemic EBT) declined by $29 billion in 2023, equivalent to a loss of $35 billion, or 25 percent, after adjusting for inflation in the cost of food at home.

SNAP emergency allotments — temporary supplementary SNAP benefits that Congress enacted in 2020 and expanded in 2021 — ended in March 2023 in the 35 states that were still paying them. As a result, benefits for households in the 35 states ending emergency allotments fell by an estimated $175 a month, on average. The end of emergency allotments are associated with a rise in food hardship and exacerbated economic strain on low-income households, multiple studies indicate. Children’s eligibility for Pandemic EBT also narrowed in 2023.

Food prices rose by 12 percent in the 12 months ending June 2022, the largest increase in 40 years. While the growth in food prices slowed in 2023, the cost of food remained considerably higher than before the pandemic (24 percent higher in December 2023 compared to February 2020). Inflation-adjusted wages for low-paid workers increased in 2023 — more than for workers in other income groups — and average hourly earnings for non-management workers grew faster than general inflation. These trends suggest wage growth may have mitigated the impact of rapid food inflation, but some households may nevertheless have experienced spells of food insecurity.

Food insecurity could have been higher if not for the USDA’s Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) revision in October 2021, which aligned SNAP benefits to more accurately reflect the cost of a healthy diet. This raised maximum SNAP benefits by 21 percent compared to what they would have been without the revision. Before the 2021 re-evaluation, SNAP benefits had failed to keep pace with the cost of a healthy, frugal, and realistic diet (even with annual adjustments for food inflation), and they became increasingly inadequate over time.

Policymakers have also made progress in helping low-income families meet their food needs through the Summer EBT program. The program, launched this summer, gives a summer grocery benefit to low-income families with school-aged children to alleviate the seasonal spike in child hunger that occurs when school lets out and children lose access to free and reduced-price school meals. Summer EBT is similar to Pandemic EBT, the successful model most states used to provide temporary pandemic-related benefits to low-income households with children between 2020 and 2023. It is expected to have provided benefits to roughly 21 million children this summer.

The role that government assistance has played in alleviating food hardship in recent years underscores the need for Congress to advance policies to help families with low incomes meet their basic needs. Unfortunately, some policymakers want to take steps in the opposite direction.

In May 2024, the House Agriculture Committee passed a farm bill that would cut $30 billion over ten years in future benefits for all SNAP participants, by preventing future TFP revisions from increasing benefits outside of inflation adjustments. The proposal would once again make SNAP benefits fall further behind the cost of a healthy, realistic diet in subsequent years. Under the Congressional Budget Office’s assumptions of the proposal’s impact, SNAP participants’ benefits would be cut by roughly a day’s worth of benefits each month, starting in 2027, rising to nearly two days’ worth by 2033.

Additionally, a proposed temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit, the full effect of which would have lifted at least a half million children above the poverty line, failed to advance in the Senate. A more robust Child Tax Credit expansion in place during 2021, as well as an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, helped to reduce food hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic, research has shown.

Finally, policy proposals in the Republican House Budget Committee’s budget resolution, the Republican Study Committee budget plan, and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda would take away food assistance, health care, and other help affording the basics when people need them. Those plans would increase poverty, health inequities, and food insecurity for millions of people.

A nation as wealthy as the United States can afford to ensure that families can put food on the table. The increase in food hardship shows that policymakers should help struggling households, not make it harder for them to meet their needs.