Jennifer Hinojosa and Debipriya Chatterjee are analysts with the Policy, Research, and Advocacy department of the Community Service Society of New York.
In a state that is home to 74 Michelin star restaurants and has a global reputation as a premier gastronomic destination, over one in five (22%) struggle to find enough to eat. In Onondaga County, home to Syracuse, 23% of the population is affected. That is according to the Community Service Society of New York’s Annual Survey of Housing and Economic Security, which asked respondents across New York State whether they had skipped meals or gone hungry or sought help from a food pantry, soup kitchens, or meal program in the last year.
A typical New York state family with children needs to spend an estimated $14,600 per year on food, according to the True Cost of Economic Security measure developed by the Urban Institute. Yet hundreds of thousands of families struggle to meet this budget — even as the economy faces further pressure from the Trump administration’s new tariffs, regressive tax cuts and rollbacks to safety net programs.
Across the state, food hardship is highest for households below the 200% of the federal poverty level (38%), but it extends far beyond low-income households. In Onondaga county, this figure climbs even higher to 44%. One in five full-time employed workers in New York report struggling to afford enough food.
And the burden isn’t felt equally: Across the state, Black residents (31%) and Hispanic residents (28%) face much higher rates of food insecurity relative to their fellow white residents (18%) — a reflection of structural inequities that have long shaped access to basic needs. The percentages for Onondaga County reflect these same inequities.
Food is unaffordable, before tariffs
Since 2019, food costs have jumped nearly 25%, while median household incomes — adjusted for inflation — have dropped by five%. New Yorkers now have less income to pay for more expensive groceries.
The situation is about to get worse. President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on goods from China, Canada and Mexico will ripple through global supply chains, pushing prices even higher. Common grocery staples like tomatoes, avocados, bananas and cooking oil could rise another 2% in the coming months. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that these tariffs will erode over $1,200 in purchasing power for the average household.
These price increases won’t just affect families; they’ll hit small businesses hard, especially those selling imported food products. Such increases will trigger a domino effect, placing pressure on small businesses to absorb higher costs or raise prices for consumers already facing economic and food hardship.
Make food insecurity great again?
To make matters worse, the Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress have proposed cutting $230 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help fund their $4.8 trillion tax cut plan. Statewide, SNAP serves as a lifeline for three million people and lifts almost 500,000 out of poverty. Closer home, almost 70,000 residents of Onondaga county rely on SNAP benefits worth $13 million.
The proposed budget would slash benefits from $6.20 per person to $4.80 per person per day, freeze future benefit adjustments, impose work requirements repeatedly shown to be ineffective in reducing spending or improving employment prospects, shift SNAP costs to already-strained state budgets, and tighten eligibility criteria and asset limits. These cuts are not only cruel — they’re counterproductive.
Supporters of these policies, many aligned with the far-right Project 2025 agenda, imagine a world where safety net programs encourage laziness. But the reality is starkly different. If the goal is to help people regain financial stability so they can sustain themselves without relying on SNAP or other government assistance, these proposals will do the opposite — keeping people in poverty longer by penalizing savings, punishing job transitions and discouraging promotions at work.
The consequences will be felt for years. The long-term impacts of nutritional inadequacy among children include reduced cognitive abilities that decrease their earnings as adults, greater expenditure on healthcare costs, and increased likelihood of justice involvement and substance use.
What can we do?
Food insecurity is not just about empty stomachs; it’s about dignity, health and the fundamental right to thrive. As New Yorkers, we must act.
State legislators should create a SNAP minimum benefit of $100, which would help over 100,000 New Yorkers, particularly older adults with limited income. SNAP benefits should also be extended to all children, regardless of immigration status, a recommendation from the Governor-appointed Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council. Better still, state lawmakers should pass SNAP4All, which would extend SNAP benefits to all income-eligible New Yorkers, no matter their immigration status.
Most importantly, we must call on our elected representatives in Congress and demand they resist being pawns in a cruel political agenda. Hunger is not a partisan issue. It’s a human one.
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