A Message from Lindsay Goldman
Read the full March 2025 edition of Aging Matters.
My whole family has terrible “hanger” issues. We are all very angry hungry people who carry snacks everywhere. I am the person most likely to eat during a virtual or in-person meeting, no matter what time of day. When I’m hungry, I am not creative or productive. I’m just agitated.
The only people who are hangrier than I am are my two kids (though my hangry husband is also terrible). Kids move from adorable and angelic to infuriated and demonic as soon as hunger hits. My children are privileged to always have enough food. Many of their peers are not.
So I was deeply concerned by a headline in my local paper: “Millions of kids could lose access to free school meals.”
This will happen if Congress passes $12 billion in food support cuts, including $3 billion from USDA’s Community Eligibility Program (CEP), which allows schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students if enough of the student body lives below the eligibility threshold (meaning, if they are poor enough).
More than 12 million children, in every state, could lose access to those free meals. When I searched for our district, I saw that these cuts would impact 9 schools and more than 8,000 kids. (Find a state-by-state fact sheet on the impact here.)
While food funding is often age-stratified, hunger persists across lifespans and households. One out of five American adults (59.7 million) lives in a multigenerational household, including 15 percent of men and 20 percent of women 65 and older.
Grandparents who live with grandchildren are more likely to struggle to afford enough food for the household. If there isn’t enough food, there’s a very good chance a grandparent is giving up at least some of theirs so the child can eat - leaving both only half-full.
Meals on Wheels America and its members feed about 2 million older people every year. But those services are also at risk now that important federal Social Services Block Grant funding is being considered for elimination.
Funding levels for the Older Americans Act, which supports 251 million meals for 2.2 million older adults annually, are also uncertain, and while I was writing this message, it was announced that the Administration for Community Living (ACL) is being "reorganized."
The list goes on. Congress is looking at $230 billion in cuts over 10 years to SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program, formerly known as food stamps), which helps feed about 4.8 million older people (60+), according to NCOA.
In the past two weeks, we’ve seen $1 billion in cuts to programs that help schools and food banks buy fresh food from local farmers, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s cancellation of $500 million in promised deliveries to food banks.
To improve health and wellbeing, prevent costly chronic conditions, enable children to thrive, and satiate hangry people of all ages, we need greater access to nutritious food.
Most people agree. A 2023 poll from Feeding America showed nearly 70 percent of likely voters wanted the government to do more to address food insecurity – not less.
Philanthropy can’t replace funding on this massive scale, but we need to pay close attention, track indicators of increased need, and hold policymakers accountable. Whatever our funding priorities, populations, or geographies, we will never achieve our desired outcomes if people are hangry.