By the end of 2024 the number of people in Orange County who struggle to eat every day had jumped to a level not seen since the Great Recession, and in the 18 months since then, the situation has almost certainly grown worse, according to national data and observations from people connected to local food nonprofits.
A new report from Feeding America, an organization that includes many of the nation’s biggest food banks, found that more than 112,000 children in Orange County – roughly 1 in 6 of all locals younger than 18 – were food insecure at some point in 2024, a jump of about 24,000 from the previous year.
Overall, the report said more than 387,000 county residents – 1 in 8 – were food insecure, meaning they spent at least part of the year not knowing if they would have access to three healthy meals in any given day.
But those findings are based on old data. And, since then, a range of factors – persistent inflation, sluggish wage growth, new work-requirement rules to qualify for food benefits and medical insurance – have pushed even more families to try to stay fed by visiting food pantries and other sources of charitable nutrition, according to people who work with food nonprofits.
“We know, from monitoring the use of our network, that demand is consistently going up,” said Claudia Bonilla Keller, chief executive of Second Harvest Food Bank, which distributes food to more than 300 pantries in the county that, collectively, are feeding about 453,000 people a month.
“So, the numbers in that report don’t tell the whole story,” she added, referencing the 2024 data.
“It’s worse right now.”
An obvious trigger is the rising price of food.
In the first 18 months after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, roughly mid-2021 through the start of 2023, food prices in Southern California surged at rates not seen since the 1970s, a result of supply chain interruptions, pandemic-related federal spending that put money in people’s pockets, and a post-pandemic rebound in the job market. The trend slowed during the 2023-24 period studied in the Feeding America report, but it didn’t end. From the start of 2023 through the end of 2024, the cost of food bought at grocery stores in Southern California jumped by 5.25%, according to federal data.
Since then, the inflation surge – for food and for many other basics – has continued.
In June, the overall price of food sold at grocery stores in Southern California was about 4.2% higher than it was in June 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor. Popular items like beef (up 11.8%) and vegetables (lettuce, up 32%; tomatoes, up 19.5%) have spiked, even as egg prices (which became shorthand for food inflation during the 2024 presidential campaign) fell back to earth (down more than 60%).
“It’s been hard to keep up with all the (changes) happening to food prices,” said Jayvon Franklin, a 47-year-old eldercare nurse, as he pushed a grocery cart through the parking lot of an Irvine Albertsons.
“We do it. We’re OK, for now. But every single time I go in there,” he said, laughing and nodding at the store behind him, “it’s more to get out.
“And after I leave here, I’m going to get gas,” he added. “That’s gonna sting. It’s not like anything is getting cheaper.”
Indeed, the price of rent in Southern California has stabilized since the start of 2025, but even that has meant a roughly 2% increase. And local gasoline prices during that period have soared, jumping 28%.
The result of all the hikes, for tens of thousands of local families, is hunger.
Though state data shows that the official poverty rate in Orange County is about 9.7%, that doesn’t measure the broader level of hardship in a community where prices for virtually everything are among the highest in the country. A 2025 study by Orange County United Way found that about 1 in 3 locals struggle to cover the basics, including gas, shelter and food.
And inflation is just part of the reason local hunger is on the rise.
Another factor pushing people toward food lines is the shifting landscape of federal assistance. Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump has directed federal agencies and spending in ways that, generally, make it tougher for poor people to access many types of assistance.
Trump and his supporters say the new rules are aimed at curtailing fraud, particularly assistance given to anybody who isn’t eligible because they aren’t a legal U.S. resident. They point to decades of federal assistance for health care and food and other basic needs and note that it’s usually been a band-aid, not a cure.
Critics say the new rules – particularly those imposed under the 2025 spending package known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – are a simple case of cutting spending so that wealthy people can save money on taxes.
Whatever the goals, the result of many of those changes, so far, has been less federal help for people seeking to meet basic needs.
For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) wants to change spending rules in ways that, in Orange County, could push about 1,400 formerly homeless people out of subsidized housing and back to the streets. On another front, new work-requirement rules to MediCal, the state’s name for the federal health insurance program known as Medicaid, are projected to result in about 249,000 people in Orange County losing health coverage over the next two years. Already, enrollment in CalOptima, the county program for tax-subsidized health care, has dropped by about 90,000 since the start of 2025.
People who don’t have access to shelter or health care also tend to struggle with staying fed. And, on the food front, federal help is shrinking fast.
Since the start of last year, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the federal funding tool known locally as CalFresh, has changed dramatically. New rules are redefining everything from who can get benefits, to the ages of people who must work or volunteer 20 hours a week or more to receive benefits, and even the stores that can sell to beneficiaries.
All told, the changes at SNAP are expected to cut spending by 20%, roughly $186 billion nationally, over the next decade. Even though some of those changes are just kicking in, federal data shows SNAP now is feeding about 5 million fewer people, including an estimated 1.5 million fewer children, than it did at the start of last year.
It’s not clear yet how those cuts will land in Orange County. Local enrollment in CalFresh has fallen by about 25,000 people since the start of last year, according to county data. And earlier this year, county officials projected they would lose about 4,500 people a month from the food program when new work-requirement rules kicked in. That began on June 1, and data on the results aren’t yet available.
But the changes to aid programs touch just half of the people going hungry in Orange County. The other half is struggling while working.
The Feeding America report found that 49.9% of all local residents struggling with food insecurity also have jobs that pay them more than the minimum to qualify for public nutrition assistance. Locally, that’s $3,408 a month for a two-person family and $5,200 a month for a family of four.
For those people, hunger comes amid 40-hour weeks.
“Food insecurity, by its very nature, is hard to define and it’s not easily seen,” Second Harvest’s Bonilla Keller said.
“In this county, I can own a home and a car and still be food insecure.”