More than one-third of Chicago-area households cannot afford the basic cost of living in their county, putting them at serious risk of food insecurity, a new report found.
The 36% at risk equates to about 1.4 million households within 16 counties across the Chicago area, according to this year’s Greater Chicagoland Hunger Report compiled by the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Northern Illinois Food Bank and the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana.
Roughly 25% of people in the areas served by the food banks already face food insecurity, the report says.
Spikes in grocery prices and rent costs — 20% and 27%, respectively — between 2020 and 2025 have contributed to the rising number of households unable to afford basic living expenses, ultimately leading to more people struggling to consistently put food on their tables, the report found.
“We are certainly very, very concerned that this state of hunger that we’re in right now is going to get worse. There’s no sugar-coating that,” said Man-Yee Lee, the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s director of communications.
Those numbers do not account for the thousands of people who are set to lose their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits after the federal government made substantial cuts to the program in its budget that won’t take effect until next year.
The hunger report released Tuesday estimated about 470,000 Illinois residents will lose some or all of their SNAP benefits. About 1.5 million people in the Chicago area currently participate in SNAP.
“I think that we’re on the cusp of another hunger crisis right now, because with the changes to the safety net programs such as SNAP that were included in the recent federal budget plan, when they go into effect, it’s going to increase food insecurity in our area,” Lee said.
The SNAP cuts propelled the food banks to look into the Chicago area’s state of hunger, resulting in the report and their combined effort to educate residents and prepare them for potential rollbacks on their food assistance.
“To us, the scariest thing is that we’re worried that most of the people that are going to be affected [by SNAP reductions] don’t even know that this is about to hit them,” Lee said, “because most of them are not watching the news every day. They’re too busy trying to make ends meet, not watching the movements of Congress.”
The burden may ultimately fall onto the food banks, but their concerted effort, which relies on public donations, don’t make the same impact that SNAP has. For every meal provided by a food bank, SNAP provides the equivalent of nine meals, the report found.
The report also found that more people have been relying on food pantries and free grocery programs, with an increase of 48% of Chicago-area households utilizing those options between 2020 and 2025. That number peaked during last year’s state fiscal year, with about 4.7 million household visits to a food pantry or free grocery program.
“We can’t do it alone,” Lee said. “It’s got to be not just the emergency food system, but we’ll also have to be supported by the federal safety net. … When you take [SNAP] away, it’s taking another leg of the stool away, and so we’re going to buckle at some point.”