A new report from the leading food bank charity Trussell has revealed that hunger and reliance on food banks have gotten even worse since 2022.
Trussell’s Hunger in the UK 2025 report, released today Wednesday 10 September, found that in 2024, 14.1 million people across the UK lived in households that struggled to afford food. This compares with 11.6 million in 2022 – that’s 16% of households in the UK, and an increase of 2.5 million people in just two years.
Trussell: food insecurity deepens, especially for the marginalised
As Trussell points out, people were classed “food insecure” if at some point in the last year:
They ran out of food and were unable to afford more, reduced the size of their meals or ate less because they couldn’t afford food, or went hungry or lost weight due to a lack of money
The report also found that one in four children (3.8 million) are growing up in households where their parents are struggling to feed them or skipping meals themself so their kids can eat.
As always, it’s even worse if you’re disabled. 74%, or three in four people referred to Trussell food banks in 2024, were disabled, which is a huge amount of disabled people, considering just 24% of the population is disabled. Eight in ten, or 79% people referred to food banks said they came from a disabled household. This compares to the fact that just 38% of all people say they live in a household with a disabled person.
One in four disabled people (27%) experienced food insecurity in 2024, which is more than double the amount for non-disabled people (11%). However, 35% of people with a mental health condition struggled, along with 43% of learning disabled people.
It’s not just disabled people, though: 25% of people from a racialised community experienced food insecurity, while just 14% of white people did. This shoots up to 38% of Black or Black British people. One in three LGBTQIA+ people (34%) had experienced food insecurity, which was well over double the amount of people who weren’t part of that community (14%).
Deprivation leads to hunger, who would’ve guessed?
Let’s pretend to be shocked that people in the North of England were worse off. 26% of households in the North West and 23% of households in the North East experienced food insecurity. This compared with 12% of households in the South East and 14% in the South West.
Unsurprisingly, living in a more deprived area means that you’re more likely to struggle to afford to eat. Trussell found that those living in the most deprived areas of the UK were three times more likely to experience food insecurity than the least deprived areas. Children growing up in the most deprived areas were more than twice as likely to be in a food insecure household.
While many politicians and the media act like being on benefits is a golden meal ticket, the reality is, of course, very different. Over half of the people who got Universal Credit (52%) went hungry last year. This rose to 62% for people who saw their payments deducted. Most people who accessed food banks last year (87%) were on some form of means-tested benefit, while 75% got Universal Credit – despite just 9% of the general population claiming it.
Poverty becoming normalised
One worrying part of the report is that 61% of people who experienced food insecurity last year did not access food banks or any other type of charitable service last year.
Trussell said:
There are concerning signs that unacceptable experiences of severe hardship are becoming normalised
55% of people who didn’t access any services despite struggling to afford food said they didn’t consider themselves to be in financial hardship. 32% said they weren’t needy enough, and 23% didn’t want to use food banks as others needed them more. This is the grim reality that has been created by the government and media acting like working people should be struggling.
However, the stigma around food banks also put many off; one in six (17%) people said they were too embarrassed to use a food bank, while one in eight (12%) were afraid of being judged for using a food bank. Many people who were surveyed by Trussell were scared of being recognised by others or saw needing to use food banks as a sign of failure.
Trussell’s recommendations for the government – actually live up to your promises
The reasons for needing food banks, however, remained the same: sky-high rent and bills, no access to secure jobs, and a social security system that just doesn’t give enough support and protection from food insecurity.
Trussell has several recommendations for the UK government. It said:
Recent analysis by Trussell shows that taking this action would not just mean fulfilling political commitments or moral obligations but deliver economic gains too
The trust reminded the government that Keir Starmer pledged that:
Tackling poverty and breaking down barriers has to be central to everything that we do
It said that the government needs to “redouble its efforts” to this commitment to end food insecurity.
Trussell continued that:
There can be no serious pathway to ending the need for emergency food without investing in further updates to our social security system.
Its recommendations reflect this. It pointed to the fact that scrapping the two-child limit would lift 670,000 people out of severe hardship, including 470,000 children, by 2026/27. If the government uprated and maintained Local Housing Allowance, this would lift 265,000 people out of severe hardship.
The charity said that if the government did more to ensure that everyone who is eligible for benefits receives them, it would lift 565,000 out of severe hardship. Finally, it said that if the government took on the Essentials Guarantee, this would lift 2.2 million people out of severe hardship by 2026/27.
Government needs to actually commit to ending poverty – not just for political point scoring
Trussell said:
This evidence is an urgent reminder of the need for more determined action. We need a clearer vision from the UK government on how we tackle the severe hardship that is so deeply rooted in our communities.
And that’s what this should be about. For too long now, politicians have used poverty as a political football, when at the heart of it, their commitment to ending food insecurity should be because they actually care about lifting the poorest out of poverty.
This post was originally published on Canary.