A new Feeding America report reveals a sharp increase in food insecurity across Orange County, with children and Latino residents experiencing some of the largest impacts. Behind the numbers is a growing reality: many working families earn too much for assistance but not enough to afford rising living costs.
Even in one of the wealthiest counties in the country, hunger has become harder to escape. A new report from the nonprofit Feeding America, based on 2024 data, found that food insecurity rose sharply across Orange County last year, with the steepest increases falling on children and Latino residents.
A County Known for Wealth, Facing a Widening Gap
The county’s Regional Food Bank reported that the number of children experiencing food insecurity jumped 27 percent in a single year, a spike local officials describe as the county’s most alarming finding. Latino residents made up the largest single group affected, at nearly 300,000 people, more than any other racial or ethnic group in the county.
The scale of the increase alarmed local food bank leaders, who have tracked hunger in the county for decades. Regional data compiled through Feeding America’s annual Map the Meal Gap study found more than 112,000 children in Orange County, roughly 1 in 6 of all residents under 18, were food insecure at some point in 2024, an increase of about 24,000 children from the year before. Overall, the report found that more than 387,000 county residents, or 1 in 8, went without reliable access to food at some point during the year.
“In this county, I can own a home and a car and still be food insecure,” said Claudia Bonilla Keller of Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, describing how the crisis often hides in plain sight. Nearly half of local residents struggling with food insecurity, 49.9 percent, hold jobs that pay too much for them to qualify for public nutrition assistance, meaning many are working full time and still going hungry.
Second Harvest’s own service data illustrates how central Latino families have become to the county’s hunger response: in a recent assessment of the population it serves, 48 percent identified as Hispanic, Latino, or of Spanish origin, most tracing their background to Mexico.
A National Pattern, Playing Out Locally
Orange County’s numbers reflect a disparity that shows up across nearly the entire country. According to Feeding America’s national data, Latino individuals are about twice as likely to face hunger as white individuals, and nearly 14 million of the 48 million people who experienced food insecurity nationwide in 2024 identified as Latino. In 96 percent of U.S. counties, food insecurity among Latino residents outpaces that of white residents.
Feeding America’s Denis McDonough said the findings reflect a crisis with no geographic boundary. “Food insecurity is not a distant problem; it is present in every community in America,” he said.
Nationally, the report also found that food prices and other rising costs, not just unemployment, are driving the increase: nearly half of the 48 million Americans facing food insecurity in 2024 earned incomes too high to qualify for federal nutrition assistance like SNAP, leaving them without a safety net despite their struggles. People in food-insecure households reported needing an additional $23.16 per person each week just to cover their food costs, a gap that totaled more than $33 billion nationwide.
“The Emergency Food System Is No Longer an Emergency”
For food bank leaders in Orange County, the past two years have felt less like a temporary crisis and more like a permanent shift. Second Harvest served more than half a million people in October 2024 alone, the highest monthly total since the height of the pandemic.
“The crisis… has now become a hidden crisis,” Bonilla Keller said. “The emergency food system is no longer an emergency anymore. It is entrenched, and people are coming to food pantries on a regular basis, and that is not sustainable.”
The trend has continued into this year. The OC Hunger Alliance now estimates that roughly 359,000 Orange County residents remain at risk of hunger, and food bank directors have pushed state lawmakers for additional funding to offset federal cuts to CalFresh, California’s food assistance program, warning that further reductions could push the number of people at risk even higher.
Why It Matters for Latino Families
The disparity isn’t unique to Orange County, but it lands with particular weight in a region where Latino residents make up a large share of the working population in service industries, agriculture, and other lower-wage sectors, jobs that often pay just above the threshold for federal food assistance while still falling short of the county’s high cost of living. For many of these families, the same economic pressures driving food insecurity, stagnant wages against rising rent and grocery costs, mirror the broader challenges facing Latino communities across California, from housing to healthcare to school enrollment.
