Food Insecurity is a Persistent and Pervasive Problem in New York City, New CSS Report Finds

Calls on lawmakers to improve service provision and design of public assistance programs

Food security remains a pertinent and persistent problem in New York City. With food costs increasing by 10.1 percent over the last year and housing costs reaching historic highs in the city, many households, especially low-income households and including those with children, remain worried about where their next meal will come from.

The Community Service Society’s latest report “The Big Apple’s Bitter Bite: Food Hardship in New York City” takes a close look at the extent and the depth of food insecurity endured by New Yorkers for the past two decades. Using data from twenty years of the Unheard Third Survey, a unique opinion poll of low-income New Yorkers developed and conducted by the Community Service Society of New York (CSS) since 2002, has allowed us to observe changes in patterns of food hardship vis-à-vis changing economic and political environments.

 Food insecurity levels, already high to begin with, especially for women and individuals from Black and Hispanic/Latinx communities, peaked during the pandemic. Testifying to the need and effectiveness of government assistance programs, including expanded Supplemental Nutritional Allowance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) and expanded federal Child Tax Credit (CTC), food hardship rates declined significantly in 2021 when enhanced assistance was available. With the expiration of additional assistance and dramatic increase in food prices, nutritional insecurity levels in 2022 are back to their pre-pandemic high levels.

More than half of low-income New Yorkers—those with incomes below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level—reported enduring food hardship. For low-income households with children, over 61 percent of them reported food hardship. Nutritional inadequacies suffered today are likely to balloon into major disadvantages (reduced cognitive ability, poorer physical and mental health) for these children in their adulthood.

Testifying to the historical legacy of marginalization and continued gender inequities, low-income households headed by single females had the highest rates of food hardship with 58 percent reporting that they often endured hunger or had to seek out food donations.

The report also finds that food insecurity is at a crisis level for the city’s Hispanic/Latinx residents. Approximately 60 percent of all low-income Hispanic/Latinx New Yorkers reported experiencing food hardship.

Since prevalence of food hardship is intimately connected with prevalence of poverty, it is, perhaps an unsurprising finding in the report that respondents from the Bronx had the highest rate of food insecurity—36 percent—while Queens residents had the lowest rates (29 percent).

The report includes the following recommendations:

1. The City must increase and baseline the budget for the Human Resource Administration (HRA) to support community based organizations (CBOs) in benefits outreach and to streamline benefits applications.
2.  The City must increase and baseline funding to adequately staff HRA’s Department of Social Services (DSS)—the agency that processes SNAP applications—to ensure applicants receive their benefits with minimal delays.
3.  The City must increase and baseline funding to a total of $59 Million for the Community Food Connection (CFC), formerly known as the Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP)
4.  The City must invest an additional $200 million in Capital funding for the continued redesign of middle and high school cafeterias to make them more modernized and culturally inclusive.
5.  New York State should follow New York City and provide free school lunches to all students.
6.  New York State should expand the Empire State Child Credit (ESCC) to benefit families across the state.
7.  New York State must increase the minimum wage in New York City and across the state.
8.  The federal government should improve SNAP to make it more effective, accessible, and impactful.

 “Almost a third of the city often goes to bed hungry” said David R. Jones, CSS President and CEO, referring to the findings of the report. “This should be an alarm bell spurring our lawmakers, at all levels of government, into action.”

“It is unfortunate that even though we have all the solutions to address food hardship in our policy toolbox, we are choosing not to deploy them,” said Debipriya Chatterjee, CSS Senior Economist and co-author of the report. “At the very least, we should try to alleviate food hardship for families with children by extending the Empire State Child Credit to children below four years of age and removing the minimum income requirement.”

“This is the new reality for many low-income families in New York City, especially among Hispanic/Latinx households, who are choosing whether to pay rent, keep the lights on, or put food on the table. We must take action and alleviate food hardship across communities,” said Jennifer Hinojosa, CSS Policy Analyst and co-author of the report.

Michelle Berney, Director of the Benefits Plus Learning Center at CSS that specializes in understanding and training direct service providers on the city and state’s safety net architecture said, “With the rising cost of food, the high costs of housing, and the ending of COVID easements, New Yorkers need more help than ever to make ends meet as seen in the report. We applaud Mayor Adam’s NYCBenefits initiative to expand and improve benefits access for New Yorkers. With such a complex system to navigate, many New Yorkers will now have additional help in accessing food and other benefits for which they may be eligible.”

“The pervasiveness of food insecurity among low-income Black and Hispanic/Latinx families with children is alarming” said Juan Diaz, Policy and Advocacy Associate at the Citizens’ Committee for Children. “As this report shows, in 2022, 63 percent of Hispanic/Latinx and 67 percent of Black families with children were food insecure. Parents should not have to decide between feeding their children and paying bills. New York must invest in nutritional programs and economic supports that help all families, no matter their race/ethnicity or income level, be healthy and thrive."

“No one in New York should go hungry, ever – yet, this latest report from CSS shows us that far too many New Yorkers of all ages are food insecure. Hunger is a public health issue, leading to poor nutrition for both children and adults, along with additional stress on families’ social, emotional, and physical well-being. Families who struggle to put food on the table are likely wrestling with other things as well: paying rent, buying diapers, finding affordable quality childcare, and paying for basic necessities,” said Kate Breslin, President and CEO of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy. “Hunger is yet another symptom of New York’s unacceptable poverty problem. Our state leaders have an obligation to implement policy solutions to food insecurity and to poverty overall: it is all connected, and none of it can be ignored.”

Issues Covered