Over 200,000 Kentuckians are facing food insecurity
Louisville Public Media |
By
Bill Burton
Published August 6, 2026 at 5:00 AM EDT
Philip Scott Andrews
/
Provided
The Feeding America, a hunger relief organization, recently released the annual Map the Meal Gap study. It showed that, for the first time, Kentucky has over 200,000 residents facing food insecurity
Dare to Care food bank’s director of communications, Alexus Richardson, spoke with LPM’s Bill Burton about some of the causes of food insecurity
This transcript was edited for clarity and brevity
Bill Burton:Let’s start with a definition of food insecure. What does food-insecure mean?
Alexus Richardson:Oftentimes, people will confuse food insecurity with hunger. We’ve all experienced hunger. It’s almost lunchtime, and you’re hungry, right? You want some food, but you have access to the means to feed that hunger. Food insecurity is when you don’t have access to the rerces versus a temporary state of hunger
BB: The 200,000 Kentuckians that are now food-insecure is quite a bit higher than it was when the last meal gap study was released. How quickly is this number increasing?
AR: We continue to see it increase year-over-year. We’re seeing about a 62% increase over the last three years. What that looks like is really more and more neighbors are coming to food pantries. More and more people are looking to their local food pantries to help them budget for the week. Their paychecks just aren’t going as far as they used to, and they’re seeking help. A lot of people are being creative. We hear all the time that people are growing their own foods, they’re carpooling to food pantries, taking food to their neighbors who can’t get out. But it really is a historic level of food insecurity. It’s the highest we’ve seen in the history of Dare to Care.
BB:This increase happened before the federal reduction to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. How could that reduction affect the situation?
AR:This data lags by two years. What that tells us is that the situation is likely a lot more severe than what we’re seeing today because this doesn’t account for changes to SNAP. Those eligibility requirements have changed, and that means that more people are going to be at risk of losing their SNAP benefits. Something else to know is that the cost shift is moving from the federal government to the states, and the full impact will depend on how states respond. If states are required to shoulder more of the cost of SNAP, that may have really difficult budget implications. So states will be making some really tough decisions that could reduce who receives SNAP benefits. It could delay those SNAP benefits from going out as well.
