Severe food insecurity is on the rise in DC area after Trump administration’s federal cuts, new report says

By MJ Lee, Andrew Seger, CNN

(CNN) — Food insecurity remains at elevated levels for Washington, DC-area residents in 2025 and the percentage of people experiencing the most severe level of food insecurity has risen, exacerbated in recent months by the Trump administration’s cuts to federal jobs and funding, according to the Capital Area Food Bank’s annual survey released on Thursday.

As of May, 36% of households surveyed indicated that they have experienced food insecurity over the past year. Notably, 41% of households with direct or indirect federal government employment that had experienced job loss said they were food insecure, according to the study, with two-thirds of those households indicating they experienced the worst level — “very low food security.” (That term describes individuals with “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake,” according to the US Department of Agriculture.)

“The data in this year’s survey paints a picture of a regional hunger problem that is persistent and is deepening,” Radha Muthiah, CEO and president of Capital Area Food Bank, told CNN. “Seventy-five-thousand more people are now saying that they’re severely food insecure, and so that means they’re reducing the size of their meals, they’re skipping meals, this includes children as well. And so that is disturbing to us as a finding.”

The survey also shed light on some of the tough financial decisions being made by families impacted by federal job cuts. Around three in four (74%) in that group said they are tapping into their savings to make ends meet, according to the survey. Meanwhile, 55% of them said they have stopped adding to long-term savings while almost one in four (24%) said they have resorted to drawing on retirement funds sooner than planned.

The study released Thursday was conducted in May by the CAFB in conjunction with the research organization NORC at the University Chicago, surveying nearly 4,000 DMV residents in areas that the food bank services.

CNN also spoke with multiple food banks around the Washington area, many of which said they have seen an increase in the demand for food support since the beginning of the year.

“We have noticed an uptick and are seeing some federal employees at our community-wide food distributions,” said Roxanne Yamashita, the executive director of Small Things Matter in Rockville, Maryland. “My husband and I are both [federal workers], but currently employed at the moment, so seeing what is happening is especially heartbreaking to us.”

The Trump administration has set out to dramatically reduce the size of the federal government – the country’s largest employer – enacting rounds of cuts across agencies that have resulted in thousands of federal workers losing their jobs.

Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia saw a decrease of around 22,100 federal employees from January to May 2025, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s analysis.

But the broader economic impact goes beyond individuals that were directly employed by the federal government and subsequently lost their jobs. The downstream effects touch on government contractors, service industries that cater to DC-area workers as well as numerous organizations and institutions that work closely with the government.

“Employment changes within the DMV will have an impact on a variety of economic outcomes in the area, including tax revenues, household spending and debt, and the housing market,” the Richmond Fed’s analysis said.

The US is also confronting a number of macroeconomic challenges, including persistently high prices, volatility stemming from Trump’s new tariffs and a slowing jobs market. Lower-income families are likely to become increasingly reliant on community food banks, after Congress passed a sweeping domestic agenda package that will make massive cuts to the food stamp program. About 2.4 million fewer Americans are forecast to receive food stamp benefits in an average month.

And the impact of all of these converging factors on food insecurity for Americans may soon become harder to measure. The Trump administration is terminating the federal government’s annual report on food insecurity, CNN reported.

At the Arlington Food Assistance Center in Virginia, CEO Charles Meng told CNN that while their clientele has appeared to remain largely the same, the group has seen a greater need from many of the low-income families that they serve.

“What we’ll see is people cutting back on various kinds of services because they want to save money,” Meng said. “So, we’ll see more of the hotel workers and the lawn maintenance folks and all of the low-income people who have been coming to us. … The bottom line is, we’re going to see many more of the same families we already see because they’re going to be cut first.”

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