Food insecurity is on the rise across Massachusetts, impacting roughly 1.1 million Bay State households, a rate that the Greater Boston Food Bank says is a record and has doubled since 2019.
New England’s largest food bank, in partnership with Mass General Brigham, is calling for increased state funding to help families access healthy food, as leaders say federal cuts are exacerbating the challenges.
Leaders describe food insecurity as inconsistent access to healthy food, affecting about 40% Massachusetts households last year, up from 37% in 2024 and double since 2019. Some 25% of families regularly missed meals or went hungry in 2025, the food bank found.
“While the data shows that we are headed in the wrong direction when it comes to food insecurity,” GBFB President and CEO Catherine D’Amato said in a statement, “Massachusetts has always been committed to solutions – this moment isn’t any different.”
“The call to action is clear: we must continue to invest in our emergency food system to meet this urgent and growing demand,” she added. “And we must work together on implementing long-term solutions to poverty to empower everyone to live better, healthier, and more productive lives.”
The findings come from a poll of 3,000 Bay Staters who responded to an online survey with over 300 questions on food access and financial strain, among other metrics.
Food-insecure households need an additional $500 per month to meet basic expenses, the annual survey found. Particularly, 75% of participants who receive SNAP benefits reported that the federal assistance isn’t enough.
This all comes as food prices have increased by nearly 30% since March 2020, according to the Consumer Price Index, and federal cuts to the USDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program and SNAP.
Leaders at the Greater Boston Food Bank say that food supplied through the USDA has been reduced by 36% since last October, “increasing the need for philanthropic and state resources to help close the resulting gap.”
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is slamming President Trump and Republicans for sparking the “shameful rise in hunger that we’re seeing today,” which she said “didn’t happen by accident.”
Haywood Talcove, the CEO of data analytics company LexisNexis, says the findings highlight the importance of protecting the integrity of SNAP and other programs meant to help those access food.
The feds have uncovered a series of SNAP fraud trafficking schemes across the Bay State over the past handful of months. Meanwhile, Auditor Diana DiZoglio found $2.4 million in SNAP fraud within the first half of the current fiscal year.
“When benefits are diverted, children lose access to the nutrition the program is designed to provide,” Talcove told the Herald.
Gov. Maura Healey has ordered the state to implement chip-enabled EBT cards in an effort to boost security in the Bay State’s SNAP program.
The Greater Boston Food Bank is requesting that the Healey administration provide $30 million to the state Department of Transitional Assistance to hire additional caseworkers to strengthen SNAP administration and benefit adequacy
“SNAP is a critical tool to lifting people out of food insecurity,” the food bank told the Herald. “While it’s essential, it’s also not enough to end hunger. No one wants fraud in the system — especially the folks who rely on it to feed themselves and their families.”
