At the Catholic Charities Yawkey Center Food Pantry in Dorchester one recent day, people lined up to receive a bag of groceries. Mary, who preferred not to share her last name, said she’s been coming to the pantry for the last couple of months.
“Food is expensive, utility’s expensive, rent is increasing,” she said. “So everything is going up but our paychecks.”
Things got harder when she had to pay for a new medication.
“I have to now make a choice: Do I buy medicine or do I buy food?” she said. “And so I have to use places like the pantry to maybe help supplement getting food so that I can still pay for the medications that I have to take.”
It’s the kind of choice that’s become far too common in Massachusetts in recent years. A report from the Greater Boston Food Bank released Tuesday shows an estimated 40% of Massachusetts households experienced food insecurity in 2025, meaning at some point, they either couldn’t afford enough food or worried about where their next meal would come from. That’s more than double the rate of food insecurity in 2019.
The report stems from an annual survey of more than 3,000 adults across the state. Anti-hunger advocates say this research is especially important now, with the federal USDA discontinuing its annual Household Food Security Report, referring to its data on hunger as “subjective, liberal fodder.”
According to Jonathan Tetrault of Catholic Charities Boston, the Yawkey Center in Dorchester remains their busiest site. This year, the pantry’s reach has expanded significantly, helping an additional 100 families every week compared to last year — and those families are visiting more often.
“Demand obviously went up during COVID, during the pandemic. There was a huge increase in the number of households [and] individuals needing assistance for food,” Tetrault said. “And then the pandemic went away, sort of went out of the headlines, and everybody thought, ‘Oh, we’re good.’ We’re not.”
In some cases, the economic disparities that existed before the pandemic were amplified.
“People who were living month to month going into COVID didn’t have the financial resources to weather it as well as some of our other neighbors,” said Pam Denholm, executive director for both the Weymouth Food Pantry and the South Shore Food Bank. “And so that is why I think we’ve seen the sustained level of high need.”
At the height of the pandemic, Denholm said, they distributed 685,000 pounds of food to people in Weymouth in a single year. The need in 2025 dwarfed that.
“We just finished out the year with the biggest numbers we’ve ever had in our 40-year history,” Denholm said. The Weymouth pantry distributed 1.1 million pounds of food in 2025.
Anti-hunger advocates say there’s been a greater surge in need in recent months as the federal government has enacted new eligibility limits for the federal food stamp program known as SNAP, as well as new work requirements.
That’s something that Mary, waiting in line at the Dorchester food pantry, said she’s seen.
“Many people that I know that used to get assistance with the SNAP – the food stamp program — have been, like, suddenly cut off,” she said. “And it’s very challenging to try to do the red tape and the paperwork to get back on.”
The loss of SNAP benefits is happening gradually as people try to renew their benefits, said Jonathan Tetrault of Catholic Charities Boston.
“And that’s not sort of a ‘cliff effect.’ That’s not hitting everybody all at once,” Tetrault said. “That’s a rolling requirement that’s putting pressure on folks and removing eligibility.”
Around the state, anti-hunger advocates are seeing that pressure.
“SNAP is America’s nutrition program for people who need support getting food on the table,” said Julie LaFontaine, president and CEO of The Open Door, a food pantry based in Gloucester. “And the erosion of that, the chipping away of it, the demonizing of it, are all things that make it harder for people to get the food that they need, the nutrition that they need to live healthy and active lives.”
The SNAP changes are significantly impacting Massachusetts residents, said the state’s Commissioner of Agricultural Resources Ashley Randle.
“When we look at the changes in eligibility, we know that will impact about 370,000 residents across the state,” she said.
The program has always been federally funded, Randle said.
“And to pass that onto the states with the timeline that has been given is not realistic,” she said.
The state provides assistance to nearly 900 food distribution programs through the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program (MEFAP). In her most recent budget proposal, Gov. Maura Healey recommended an additional $5 million boost for that program.
But given the staggering new report, advocates are asking the legislature to approve another $3 million, to bring the program to a total of $58 million.
“When you have 40% of households in the Commonwealth experiencing food insecurity, we have a serious issue,” said Catherine D’Amato of the Greater Boston Food Bank.
The state also supports a program that adds money to SNAP cards to pay for locally grown produce at Massachusetts farmer’s markets.
But because that program, known as the Healthy Incentives Program, uses SNAP cards, tens of thousands of Massachusetts households who have lost their SNAP eligibility and find themselves even more unable to pay for food, now also no longer have access to that state-funded farmers market program.
A state task force on hunger plans to give recommendations later this month.
Even if additional state funding comes through, D’Amato said, it’s going to be an ongoing challenge to feed the Massachusetts households who need help.
“I don’t see this getting better for several years,” D’Amato said. “And we’re really going to be challenged to hold the line at 40% and try to help it from creeping into a higher number.”
Beyond government funding, she says she’s hoping more Massachusetts residents will step up to support their local food pantries, to help make sure their neighbors have enough to eat.
