The challenge of hunger in the Greater Washington region is persistent and deepening.
New data from the Capital Area Food Bank’s latest Hunger Report shows that food insecurity remained elevated last year, with 36% of the region not always knowing where their next meal would be coming from.
That overall prevalence of food insecurity is nearly unchanged from the prior year’s report. Yet the 2025 data also reveals that the severity of the issue is worsening, with an increase in the number of people who are experiencing very low food security – including many members of the federal and contractor workforce whose employment has been impacted by recent cuts.
The rise in the most severe category of food insecurity for the third straight year indicates that more households are reducing the amount of food they eat due to a lack of resources or skipping meals altogether.
The survey’s findings also showcase the continuously widening gap in our regional economy. For a large and expanding share of the population—particularly those who are working but earning a low or unstable income —the pressures of high inflation, slow wage growth, and limited access to opportunity are making it difficult to consistently secure basic needs like food.
The findings are the result of a general population survey of nearly 4,000 residents, conducted in partnership with the highly trusted independent social research organization NORC at the University of Chicago. Looking across the region, the level of food insecurity detailed in the report means 1.5 million people in the DMV weren’t always able to get the types or amount of food needed to thrive.
REPORT IN BRIEF
At the county level, food insecurity rates largely mirrored the region-wide trend, with most counties showing changes of one percentage point or less compared to 2024. The one exception was Alexandria City, which showed a four-point decline. However, that difference remains within the margin of error for county-level estimates.
The highest rate was reported at 49%, in Prince George’s County, Md., and the lowest was in Arlington County, Va., at 22%.
As in 2024, those most likely to experience food insecurity include households with lower incomes and educational attainment, households with children, and Black and Hispanic households.
Having a job or a college degree does not exclude people from experiencing food insecurity:
- 77% of those who are food insecure are working one or more jobs
- More than half have attended some college courses or completed a degree
Economic drivers of food insecurity: rising costs, job losses
According to the CAFB-NORC survey, 40% of adults say their household finances declined, while only 16% report improvement. Low-income respondents were far more likely to report worsening finances compared to those in middle- and higher-income groups, highlighting the uneven impact of economic pressures across the region.
Many attributed the financial decline to rising expenses and the overall cost of living, as well as job loss (especially for those employed by the federal government), reduced hours, or salary cuts.
As of May, when the survey was fielded, 41% of households where someone lost a job that was directly or indirectly tied to the federal government were food insecure. This is more than double the rate of food insecurity for similar households who did not experience a loss of employment (17%) and higher than the general population rate of 36%.
Among federal employees and contractors who were laid off in the last 12 months, over half reported low or no confidence in finding another job that pays similarly to their last job. Looking to broader unemployment trends, the average duration of unemployment as of June 2025 was 23 weeks — suggesting that the trends noted above related to food insecurity are not likely to be reversed for this population in the near term.
Responses to Economic Hardship
A large and growing percentage of people in the region are experiencing economic pressures that are having significant impacts on their household budgets. As a result, many families and individuals are frequently engaging in numerous financial coping behaviors to make ends meet, including:
- Savings to pay for day-to-day expenses, like housing, utility bills, or debt payments (83%);
- Making only minimum payments on credit cards or loans (70%);
- No longer saving for retirement or other future expenses (62%); and
- Making an early withdrawal from a retirement account (32%)
When experiencing constrained finances, many survey respondents reported modifying their spending patterns. Some of these changes included reducing spending in areas that are often considered discretionary. Other reductions in spending, however, have been in categories with a direct connection to health and well-being:
- 45% of people with worsening finances skipped or delayed health-related spending on things like medicine or doctor’s visits
- 55% purchased lower-cost, less healthy food at the grocery store
Those who reported they sometimes or often ran out of food before they had money to buy more relayed a number of coping strategies:
- 57% reported skipping meals or cutting the size of them
- 61% shared that they ate less than they felt they should
- 47% said they experienced being hungry but didn’t eat because there wasn’t enough money for food (35% lost weight for the same reason)
- 32% reported not eating for a whole day because there wasn’t enough money for food
Some of these strategies also extended to how people reported feeding children in the household. Among food insecure households with children, 81% reported relying on just a few types of low-cost foods to provide to their kids, and 40% reported that they were unable to feed their children enough because there was not adequate money.
Future implications of current trendlines
Looking ahead, as more people face economic stress in our region over the coming 6-12 months, the potential for an array of negative impacts is high.
The impacts of stagnant wages coupled with harmful financial coping behaviors threaten to compound over time and worsen the financial stability of a large and growing number of people in our area. This is likely to have profound repercussions, most severely for those with lower incomes, deepening existing inequities across our region.
At the same time, the Supplemental Food Assistance Program (SNAP) is poised to experience a major contraction as a result of the budget reconciliation bill that passed this summer. The legislation will profoundly restructure SNAP and make unprecedented cuts of around $186 billion to the program over the next ten years through a variety of measures, including new costs to states and more people being subject to work requirements. As a result, an estimated 50,000 families in the region stand to lose an average of $187 in benefits per month – or the equivalent of about 40 meals.
Another major factor influencing food insecurity over the coming months is the continued fallout from reductions in force and spending by the federal government. At the time of the CAFB-NORC survey, approximately 29,000 people in the region had left employment with the federal government or a federal government contractor. That includes over 11,000 people who took the deferred resignation offer, under which they will stop receiving paychecks this month. Most impacted workers have low levels of confidence in finding another job that pays a similar wage or uses their skills.
Experts and local leaders are divided as to whether the regional economy can fully absorb all of the former federal employees now looking for jobs. Depending on the level and rate of that absorption over the coming months, a significant portion of this population could be at risk of becoming among the 1.5 million people in the DMV who are already food insecure.
Recommendations
- Work to mitigate the worst impacts of SNAP cuts: With the recent passage of federal legislation that makes significant reductions to the SNAP program, tens of thousands of people in our region will lose access to nutritious meals. Partnering with community organizations to help people stay qualified for SNAP, alongside work to protect school nutrition programs, can help blunt some of the impact.
- Upskill and re-skill food insecure individuals: The study asked respondents about their level of interest in transitioning to a list of in-demand, living wage jobs. Food insecure respondents expressed significant interest in several jobs that are in high demand across the DMV, indicating a large, untapped pool of talent for these positions.
- Promote “Food Is Medicine”: Those who are food insecure are substantially less likely to be able to afford to eat balanced meals, more likely to report having a diet-related condition that impacts their daily life, and more likely to suffer impacts to their ability to be productive at work due to their conditions. These findings reinforce the critical role of nutrition in treating diet-related conditions, which together form the foundation of the Food Is Medicine (FIM) movement.