Food For All

A report told us, one in three adults (31%) and nearly half of families with children (44%) experienced food hardship in 2023, a rate that remains consistent with the previous year’s study. The report defines food hardship as sometimes or often running out of food, or a person worrying that they will. Amid these challenges, 230 million pounds of emergency food were distributed across New York City’s five boroughs in 2023, according to a City Harvest analysis of data from FeedNYC.

The 2024 Poverty Tracker spotlight report examines food pantry use before and since the COVID-19 pandemic, covering 2015 to 2023. It finds that pantry use among families with children tripled at the height of the pandemic in 2020, and today, utilization rates remain twice its pre-pandemic level, at 18% in 2023 compared to 9% in 2019. Over this same period, pantry use among employed New Yorkers also soared, more than tripling in 2020 and remaining twice as high in 2023 at 11% compared to 2019, when it stood at 5%.

Our dream is that by 2035, food insecurity will become an old story.