More than 40% of Big Island households didn’t know where their next meal would come from in 2023, according to a study by the Hawaii Foodbank.
The study, administered by SMS Research and analyzed by Pirkle Epidemiology and Evaluation Consulting, was published Wednesday and was based on interviews with 910 residents across the state to detail the challenges faced by Hawaii communities in finding affordable food during 2023.
The results were sobering. One in three Hawaii households were food-insecure in 2023, and one in 10 would go without food for a whole day at least some months out of the year. While young adults between 18 and 29 were the most affected by food insecurity, 29% of children in the state experienced food insecurity, and 6% went entire days without food.
Food insecurity — defined in general as “when people don’t have enough to eat and don’t know where their next meal will come from” — was at its worst on the Big Island, with 40% of all households reportedly food-insecure — the next-highest rate was on Maui, with 31%.
According to the study, the Hawaii Foodbank is serving nearly 160,000 people on Oahu and Kauai each month, the highest since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The worsening situation seems to be driven by several factors, including the end of federal pandemic relief programs, the impacts of the Maui wildfires, high inflation and a corresponding increase to prices of goods and services and more.
Kristin Frost Albrecht, executive director of The Food Basket on Hawaii Island, said the findings of the survey mirror what she has seen among Big Island residents.
“Right now, we’re serving about 60,000 people a month,” Frost Albrecht said. “During the peak of the pandemic, we were seeing 85,000 a month, so it’s not quite as bad as that. But the big change now is that these are folks who are employed.”
Frost Albrecht said she has seen a significant influx of people seeking food assistance for the first time, many of whom are in households where both parents are employed. Those people, she said, are in particularly precarious positions: Asset limited, income constrained and employed families, or ALICE families, don’t qualify for many federal assistance programs but still struggle to make ends meet.
“Anyone whose been to the store knows how much food prices have gone up,” Frost Albrecht said.
Frost Albrecht said it is a problem with few clear solutions, short of rampant inflation reversing course and bringing prices down to reasonable levels. While she lauded the survey, she said that it will take years for its findings to be synthesized into federal policy that helps people.
Meanwhile, The Food Basket has conducted its own surveys of food prices around the island, as part of an effort by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to improve its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Frost Albrecht said that SNAP eligibility is determined based on food cost data from the City and County of Honolulu, which does not reflect costs on the neighbor islands.
At the same time, Frost Albrecht lamented that most efforts in the state Legislature to help with the issue seem to have died on the vine, although she said the state budget bill has included an allocation for The Food Basket’s DA BUX program, which provides discounts on locally grown produce.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.