TAMPA, Fla. — A report released by the United States Department of Agriculture this week shows 17 million households nationwide experienced food insecurity last year — an increase of 3.5 million from 2021.

The president and CEO of Feeding Tampa Bay said this region is also seeing an increased need.

What You Need To Know

  •  A report from the USDA shows 3.5 million more households reported experiencing food insecurity last year than in 2021

  •  The report said there were also 1 million more households with children that reported food insecurity from the previous year

  •  The president and CEO of Feeding Tampa Bay said his organization is also seeing a dramatic increase in need

  • The pandemic, inflation, and the end of the child tax credit and certain expanded benefits reportedly contributed to rising need

"We've been seeing for a while the numbers of people in our care increase dramatically," said Thomas Mantz, with Feeding Tampa Bay.

According to the USDA report, 12.8% of U.S. households experienced food insecurity in 2022 — what it calls a statistically significant increase from 10.2% the year before. One million more households with children also struggled at times to put food on the table.

"The reality is for many families, the pandemic undercut their household stability, and they're struggling to make ends meet now," Mantz said. "Now, with an economy that's had some challenging circumstances — gas, food, rent — folks are in a deeper hole than they ever have been."

He said programs meant to help people through COVID, like the Child Tax Credit and greater access to SNAP benefits, WIC, and more, are less available. 

"All of those were expanded to make sure that safety net kept more people stabilized," Mantz said. "Well, what we have now is most of those programs have sunset, and as a result of them sunsetting, we're seeing need go up greater and greater."

The USDA report said 55% of food-insecure households reported taking part in one or more of of the three largest federal nutrition assistance programs— SNAP, WIC, and the National School Lunch Program — in the month before the survey.

Feeding Tampa Bay said it's seeing an increase in demand across all of its programs and services.

For example, its Feeding Pinellas Empowerment Center saw a 40% increase in SNAP assistance requests from December to June, and a 25% increase in visits to its on-site pantry from July to September. The organization said its community partners have seen a 100% increase in the last quarter in requests for transportation, housing and rental assistance, and other services.

"I think that we, as a community, have to make some decisions about how we look after everybody in the community," Mantz said.

He told Spectrum Bay News 9 part of that is adopting policy to help people through tough times.

"Here's the other thing we have to think about: The longterm implications to child poverty doubling means we are setting ourselves up well into the future for children who have had educational challenges that end up having longer term challenges, which causes problems in the household," Mantz said. "It puts greater strain on social services, safety nets in the future. If kids are well fed now, they're better educated later, they're more capable in the future. If seniors have better access to food and other services today, they don't access the health care system quite as much."

Mantz said it's also important for corporations in a community to step in to help and for organizations like his, along with volunteers, to fill in gaps in services now.

On Thursday, dozens of volunteers worked assembly line style to fill boxes at Feeding Tampa Bay's warehouse. Melissa DiMuro placed packages of pasta into the boxes before sending them down the line to the next person.

"We are approaching our 900th box of the afternoon," said DiMuro, who is a regular in the warehouse.

"I've been bringing my family on Friday nights, first of each month," she said. "They have a Changemakers program for families. My kids love giving back here."

This week, DiMuro came with co-workers from Limbach, packing boxes for Hurricane Idalia relief.

"Food is one of the most basic needs, and the fact that so many people, and even more so recently, don't have enough food to eat in their homes, it's just really unacceptable," DiMuro said.

She encouraged others to get involved.

"We're looking at 1,000 boxes this afternoon," she said. "So, even one person can make a really huge difference."

Feeding Tampa Bay's web site has information on how you can get involved and how those in need can find food pantries near them.