Millions of older Americans don’t have enough to eat, as food prices rise beyond fixed incomes

From Harvest Public Media:

Since completing treatment for breast cancer, Toni Keller tries to stick to a healthy diet — she consumes lots of fruits and vegetables and no red meat.

Keller, 65, moved into Storm Lake Senior Housing in May, a low-income community in the northwest Iowa city of Storm Lake. She spent some of her adult life out of the workforce, which substantially reduced the retirement benefits she now receives.

“I get a whopping $304 a month, because I had a sick child, so most of my time was spent with her,” Keller said.

That Social Security payment isn’t nearly enough to cover Keller’s living expenses, including food.

Food insecurity and older adults

While younger Americans might see their wages rise as costs for necessities such as food increase, older adults’ incomes are more likely to be fixed.

Food prices aren’t increasing as quickly as they did in 2022 and 2023. Still, Social Security benefits aren’t always enough to stave off food insecurity, said Gina Plata-Nino, director of policy and advocacy at the Food Research & Action Center.

“Your rent didn’t decrease because you turned 60. Your utilities didn’t decrease because you turned 60. Neither did fuel, and neither did food,” she said.

Advocates for older adults fear the situation will worsen, as more Americans lose access to SNAP, the largest food assistance program in the U.S. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in 2025, tightened eligibility rules for SNAP, including by raising the age at which recipients are fully excluded from work requirements.

As a group, older adults are one of the biggest utilizers of SNAP, Plata-Nino said.

More than 7.4 million Americans ages 60 and up experienced food insecurity in 2023, according to the National Council on Aging. That’s approximately one in 11 older Americans.

Employees of food banks said they’re seeing more older Americans seeking food help.

John Mabry, the chief relationship officer with the Food Bank of Lincoln in east-central Nebraska, said that almost 200 people came to pick up food in Humboldt, Nebraska, on a recent weekday. Of those, at least half were seniors.

“Tough times for young and old right now,” he said in an email.

Mabry said the affordability crisis is real and that the Food Bank of Lincoln is seeing more and more neighbors coming directly to their facility, including many older adults.

“One in six of our neighbors is not sure how to put food on the table,” Mabry said. “Many are seniors who tell us they don’t know how they are going to get by, the way things are going now.”

Where seniors are going for help

As food prices climb, community and religious organizations across the central United States have intensified efforts to distribute food to seniors and remove obstacles that might make it difficult for them to get help.

Metro Lutheran Ministry has three food pantry locations in the Kansas City area and other partnerships that help serve residents.

Once a month, people 60 and older can come to the pantries to receive a “senior commodity box” with canned goods, cheese, instant potatoes and other staples. It’s part of a federal initiative.

“We don’t want them to have to make multiple trips down to get their food, get their box, and then come back for food pantries,” said Kimberlye Bernard, Metro Lutheran Ministry’s client services program manager. “So we try to make it like one-stop shopping, because transportation can be a challenge for them as well.” 

The consistency of the monthly box is important for people on fixed incomes who are struggling to cope with ever-rising food costs, she said.

Plata-Nino, of the Food Research & Action Center, said older adults who receive SNAP benefits are less likely to be forced to choose between paying a copay for their medicine and being able to eat. The upside doesn’t stop there, she said.

“It also improves mental acumen,” she said. “ … It has positive impacts on individuals being able to deal better with stress.”

Dr. Preeti Malani, a professor of medicine at the University of Michigan who was part of the team that conducts the school’s National Poll on Healthy Aging, said that the consequences of inadequate nutrition can cascade into the broader community.

“If we have 50-year-olds who cannot be healthy because they lack nutrition, they lack good food, then they’re going to have a hard time staying in the workforce, which isn’t good for us as a nation,” Malani explained. 

Connecting older adults with the assistance they are eligible to use is a challenge throughout the country, but the problem is worse in sparsely populated areas, according to data compiled by the National Council on Aging.

For example, the proportions of eligible people age 65 or older actually enrolled in SNAP and supplemental Social Security programs are below the national average in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, according to the organization. For 2023, Iowa had the third-lowest rate of SNAP participation, at just 19% of those eligible.

Across the central U.S., more than 2 million people age 65 or older were eligible for federal food benefits, but did not use them.

“One of the things that we’ve seen in preliminary data is that areas with lower participation have a lower concentration of community-based supports,” said Johnston, with the National Council on Aging. The organization offers tools to help seniors and others find local resources.

‘We’d probably be in a lot of trouble’

Once a month, a large truck from the Food Bank of Iowa delivers food to St. Mark Lutheran Church in Storm Lake. Volunteers from Friends With Food, a partnership between the church and SALUD!, a multicultural health coalition, bag up the food and prepare it for distribution.

Most of the food is delivered to low-income older adults, many of whom don’t have regular access to transportation. A large delivery also goes to the senior living community where Toni Keller lives.

The residents create their own monthly food pantry in the common room with the donations, laying out potatoes, bell peppers and other fresh produce on the tables, each filing through to shop. Signs in English and Spanish give people instructions on how many items each person can choose.

“I take what I do need and then leave what I don’t need for other people,” Keller said. “Last time was a whole bag of nectarines — absolutely wonderful.”

Keller said she uses SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks Iowa, a state program that matches SNAP dollars spent on fresh fruits and vegetables dollar-for-dollar, for amounts up to $15 per day. The timing of the pop-up pantry is helpful, she added.

“Us older Americans don’t have a lot of money, and it can be kind of hard to get help. I think for a lot of us, if not for this program we’d probably be in trouble,” Keller said, “and it’s nice that this program shows up in the middle of the month.”

Linda Rufus, 67, lives at the same senior housing complex as Keller.

She said she’s had to make some difficult budget decisions.

“I’m thinking about how I’m gonna rob Peter to pay Paul because food prices are extremely high,” Rufus said, “and I have to really weigh out what’s more important or how I can get the most out of a meal.”

She’s changed how she shops for groceries, switching to cheaper forms of protein that won’t strain her wallet.

“I’m a meat eater, so I love steaks. I love lamb chops. I can’t afford those things anymore. Oxtails — I can’t afford those anymore. I basically stick to things like ground turkey as opposed to ground beef,” she said.

Now she frequently eats Hamburger Helper, homemade skillet meals and other instant meals.

Rufus said the pop-up pantry at the senior center has been a big help to her and her neighbors.

“We’re very thankful and grateful to the food banks,” Rufus said, “because if it were not for the food banks supplying us with food, we would be in a lot worse condition than we are.”

This story was produced by The Midwest Newsroom and Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains, including Texas. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.