Hunger In NY Grows, Even As Economy Rebounds, NYS Comptroller Finds

NEW YORK — The economy is showing sure signs of improvement, but this is cold comfort to the growing number of New Yorkers going to bed hungry, according to a just released follow-up study from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Food insecurity is increasing in New York, with one out of every nine households (11.3 percent or 875,000 families) unable to get enough food at some point during 2020 through 2022 because they lacked money or other resources, according to a follow-up analysis released this month by DiNapoli's office.

A blistering report released last year found one out of every ten New York households (800,000 families) experienced food insecurity in 2019 through 2021. Nationally, food insecurity increased for the first time in over a decade to 11.2 percent during 2020 through 2022.

"As the COVID pandemic ended, so did many of the enhanced federal benefits that helped struggling families put food on the table, and just as food and other household costs started to rise," DiNapoli said. "These benefits drove down the number of households facing food insecurity and food insufficiency. Higher food costs and rising poverty rates leave far too many New York households with too little to eat. I urge the federal government to expand eligibility for nutrition assistance programs so we can make sure families throughout New York and America don’t go hungry."

DiNapoli cited eye-opening census data highlighting how stark the problem has become.

Data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau since the start of the pandemic show general increases in food insufficiency among New York and U.S. households through 2023. Rates rose in 2021 and remained elevated in 2022 and 2023. Households with children experienced the highest rates of food insufficiency over the last few years, as high as 16 percent in 2022. Data from the first three months of 2024 indicate that while rates are dropping, roughly one out of every nine households with children in New York sometimes or often do not have enough to eat.

During the pandemic, DiNapoli points out, New York families benefitted from temporary increases in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, including a 15 precent increase to maximum SNAP benefit amounts from Jan. through Sept. 2021. Monthly SNAP expenditures increased by $506.4 million, or 142 percent, from Jan. 2020 to Feb. 2023, when supplemental emergency SNAP allotments ended.

SNAP recipients increased to 2.8 million by June 2020, and continued to trend upward through March 2023, reaching a recent peak of 3 million, even as job growth continued steadily. Since March 2023, the number of monthly SNAP recipients decreased by 1.9 percent to about 2.9 million in Jan. 2024.

See Also: 1 Out Of 10 NY Households Suffer From Food Insecurity: NYS Comptroller

But, New York's top fiscal officer said that the weakening of the social safety net isn't the only reason food insecurity continues to grow in the Empire State.

In the last five years, but especially from late 2021 through early 2023, year-over-year "food at home" costs have risen sharply nationally. In the New York metropolitan area, year-over-year growth in these costs increased from 4.6 percent in Sept. 2021 to 11.9 percent in July 2022 and experienced the only percentage decreases in such costs in February and March 2024.

Still, there is room for some optimism for those most at risk. The latest state budget took action on some of the recommendations from the 2023 report on food insecurity in the state.

The enacted budget for State Fiscal Year 2024-25 draws on state and federal funding to implement and administer a new federal food program for low-income families with school-aged children when schools are closed in the summer. It is estimated the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program for Children will serve about two million children in New York.

The enacted budget also provides a total of $192.3 million for school lunch and breakfast programs, for a year-over-year increase of $11 million. In addition, the budget appropriates $57.8 million for the Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program, which supplements food and operational costs of food pantries, soup kitchens, and emergency shelters, and $54.3 million for the Nourish New York program.