The Federal Reserve Bank of New York says food-related hardship has surged for many of the nation’s most financially vulnerable households, a trend that helps explain why consumer sentiment has soured even while broad economic indicators appear resilient.
In a blog post published by its economists, the New York Fed reports "a remarkable increase in food insecurity, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income households and households with young children." The bank finds that these food problems coincide with a "contemporaneous increase in pessimism" among lower-income groups and a pronounced drop in expectations about finding a job.
The findings come from the Fed’s long-running Survey of Consumer Expectations, a poll most widely noted for its measures of inflation expectations. For the food-related analysis, respondents were asked whether they had recently tapped savings to pay expenses, struggled to secure enough food, skipped meals, or relied on public or private food assistance. The New York Fed compared responses from surveys conducted in 2020, 2025 and February 2026.
Between October 2025 and February 2026 the bank found meaningful increases in the shares of households reporting those conditions. The rise in food-related challenges was broadly distributed across demographic groups but was larger on average for nonwhite households, lower-income and lower-educated households, and households with children.
The New York Fed highlights an "association" between rising food insecurity and weak consumer sentiment among lower-income households, suggesting this link may help explain why measures of consumer confidence remain unusually low even as other economic statistics point to a healthier picture.
Economists at the bank frame these developments as part of a continuing K-shaped pattern in the U.S. economy, where gains have been concentrated and outcomes diverge sharply across income levels. On one side of that K-shape, wealthier Americans have benefited from higher asset prices, a steady job market and lower mortgage borrowing costs. On the other side, a significant share of middle- and lower-income households face elevated uncertainty and financial strain.
That stress shows up in several ways, the report says: worries about affordability driven by the high cost of living, persistent inflation and elevated interest rates, as well as higher delinquency rates on credit cards and auto and student loans. Those pressures, in turn, are linked to growing pessimism about the economic outlook.
The New York Fed notes inflation pressures have accelerated recently, and attributes part of that renewed pressure to specific policy and geopolitical developments. The report cites large-scale import tax increases and a Middle East war as factors that have produced an energy shock and higher uncertainty about the economy’s future. These dynamics have coincided with a shift in the labor market from a previously high-hire environment during and after the pandemic to a more muted, low-hire, low-fire phase, a transition that has added to household stress.
Overall, the bank’s analysis underscores a bifurcated recovery in which the spending power and security of wealthier households help support headline economic strength, while a sizable portion of the population contends with growing food insecurity and financial fragility. That divergence is reflected in both the consumption patterns underpinning current growth and in measures of consumer mood and job market expectations.
Data and methodology notes - The analysis is based on responses to the Survey of Consumer Expectations collected at several points, including 2020, 2025 and February 2026. Questions covered use of savings for expenses, difficulty obtaining sufficient food, skipped meals, and receipt of food assistance from public or private sources. The New York Fed compared changes in the shares of households reporting these experiences, and examined how such changes correlated with measures of sentiment and job-finding expectations across demographic groups.