Every Thursday, Chris Manno volunteers at a food pantry near the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Waynesboro, Va., where she helps guide the families waiting to shop for free groceries.
Then she gets in line herself, sitting in a white lawn chair until the doors open.
For two years, Ms. Manno has shopped at the Lifeworks Project’s River City Bread Basket. Then this summer, her federal food benefits were cut by about $300 a month in an unforgiving economy, and her trips to the pantry went from supplement to necessity.
“People are hungry, and they are scared,” said Ms. Manno, 57, who is on medical leave from her job at a nonprofit and shares an apartment with her 22-year-old disabled son. “I am here because my food budget kept getting tighter and tighter.”
Rising grocery bills and dwindling federal food benefits — the first driven by tariffs and war, the second by government budget cuts enacted, in part, by President Trump’s signature tax-cut-and-spending law — are pushing struggling families to food pantries to help bridge the gap.
An NBC News survey this month of 48 of the largest food banks — representing 35 states and Washington, D.C. — found that nearly three-quarters reported increases in the number of people coming to their sites over the past year. The rise is coinciding with midterm elections that could prove to be a referendum on Mr. Trump’s economic stewardship.
“We are sitting at food insecurity levels that are the highest they have been since the Great Recession,” said Linda Nageotte, president and chief operating officer of Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 250 food banks. “Prices for everyday basic necessities are increasing faster than incomes, and the result for too many families, is that there is just too much month at the end of their money.”
The recent jump in food pantry traffic sits atop elevated demand from pandemic-era disruptions and inflation that had already widened the type of families dependent on help. Assistance that was once reserved for emergencies has become indispensable for many.
“The role of a food bank has gone from being a real lifeline in the most extreme cases to being an important part of the social services infrastructure of many American communities,” said Richard LeBer, president and chief executive of the Harry Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida, which serves about 300,000 people monthly in five counties.
He said the food bank served about 20 percent more families this August than last August.
One Friday this spring in Albuquerque, N.M., Jacqueline Marquez, 29, was running low on food and needed help, so she drove for the first time to a food distribution site.
Ms. Marquez sat in the drive-through line for about 90 minutes, waiting for a box of fresh fruit and vegetables to be loaded into her minivan. She remembered feeling overwhelmed by the thought that so much of her financial circumstances was tied to distant geopolitics out of her control.
It has been, she said, “a season of struggle.”
Ms. Marquez works part-time as a cooking instructor and is looking for a full-time job now that her youngest attends day care. She needs higher-quality foods for a daughter with severe food allergies. Child support and about $700 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits go only so far, as the price of gas — about $4.39 per gallon in New Mexico — and other essentials rise.
She has canceled doctor appointments too far from her home, she said, “because I have to ration my gas.”
Even then, she said, “sometimes I run out before the month is over.”
Overall, consumer prices are up 3.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Food costs jumped 2.5 percent over the past 12 months and about 30 percent from 2019 to 2025.
The result: Almost half of Americans struggle to pay for at least one of their basic needs, a study by the Pew Research Center found. Nearly three-quarters of lower-income adults reported difficulty covering the cost of groceries, housing, medical care or daily transportation.
Compounding all that, the Trump administration cut about $1 billion in federal aid for anti-hunger programs last year, then trimmed SNAP funding — to cut waste and fraud, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.
SNAP participation fell by about 5 million people from July 2025 to June 2026, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which analyzed federal and state data. That has added pressure to charitable food groups.
“It’s the perfect storm of long-term financial strain, disruptions related to SNAP, higher cost of living and wages not keeping pace,” said Kari Diener, chief executive of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank in Virginia, who has seen demand increase by about 40 percent over the last four years.
Kyle Waide, president and chief executive of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, said the demand for food assistance within the metro Atlanta and North Georgia network had increased by about 70 percent over five years, most notably after the expiration of pandemic-era benefits.
He added that much of the demand was among households that earn too much money to qualify for federal programs. The food bank is serving about 275,000 households per month.
The most recent increases are not being caught in national statistics. The Trump administration decided a year ago to no longer track hunger. The last federal report showed about 48 million Americans experienced food insecurity at some point in 2024.
Data from the 211 network, a national information and referral service for social services and other assistance, offers a more recent if narrow snapshot. The United Way, which supports the 211 network and handles about 60 percent of the referrals, reported at least a 20 percent spike in requests for food assistance last year in multiple states, including Louisiana, Texas, Maine, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Heather Black, who leads United Way Worldwide 211 System Strategy, said some who reached out to 211 acknowledged they were racking up credit card debt to buy groceries.
On Tuesdays, Celia Rosas wakes up an hour or two before sunrise to take a couple of worn lawn chairs to a nearby church parking lot in Immokalee, Fla., to secure spots for her and a neighbor in the front of the weekly food pantry line.
Twice a month, she heads to a drive-through food pantry pitched on the grounds of a rodeo where she picks up two prepackaged bags of chicken, fruits and vegetables. And, on Saturday mornings, if her food is low, Ms. Rosas visits another local church for ingredients to make a big pot of spaghetti — pasta, tomato sauce and ground beef.
“Coming to the lines was hard at first because I had never had to do that,” said Ms. Rosas, 57, a third-generation tomato picker and packer who was forced to quit after open-heart surgery three years ago.
Now, Ms. Rosas and her husband, a cancer survivor, are getting by on his $1,200 disability check. It’s not enough, so Ms. Rosas is looking for part-time work and relying on food pantries.
“I see so many people in the lines,” she said, “that I know I am not alone.”
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