More than one in four Fairfax County households meets the definition of “food-insecure,” and that figure is likely to rise in coming months as the full impacts of federal worker and funding cuts materialize.
“More challenging times are ahead,” Hilary Salmon, senior director of marketing and communications for Capital Area Food Bank, predicted when briefing board members of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) yesterday (Wednesday).
Capital Area Food Bank’s 2025 hunger report, based on data compiled in the spring, found that 36% of all households across the D.C. region are food-insecure, meaning their access to food has been limited or uncertain at least once within the past year. That’s in line with the 37% recorded in 2024, and above the 32% from 2023.
The figures represent “troublingly elevated levels,” said Sabrina Tadele, the nonprofit organization’s senior director of strategic initiatives.
Determining who is food insecure, and to what degree, comes from a screening consisting of 18 questions asked of participants. The annual survey, conducted since 2020, is a partnership between Capital Area Food Bank and its research partner, NORC at the University of Chicago.
Fairfax’s food-insecurity rate of 26% in 2025 was second lowest regionally, above the 22% recorded in Arlington. Alexandria had a rate of 32%. At the high end of the scale were Prince George’s (49%) and Prince William (43%) counties.
Fairfax’s 2025 rate was essentially in line with the 27% in the 2024 scorecard.
Most troubling to the researchers in 2025 was an increase in the percentage of residents facing extreme food insecurity. The rate has grown from 16% to 22% of total households in the past four years, now representing 820,000 people.
“Folks are expressing that they are skipping meals or not eating for an entire day, or maybe even cutting children’s food intakes,” Tadele said.
The report was “pretty sobering,” said Rodney Lusk, Fairfax County’s Franconia District supervisor and chair of the COG board.
With the federal government seemingly disinclined to provide additional support — and, in fact, making cuts to assistance programs like SNAP and Medicaid — localities will have to step up, Lusk said.
“We’ve got, obviously, some work to do,” he said. “We’ve got to figure out a solution.”
Mark Wolfe, a COG board member and vice mayor of Manassas, said that with one major transportation initiative — the DMV Moves task force — about ready to wrap up its study of funding for the region’s transit systems, COG should lead the way next on tackling food issues.
“This and housing, this is what matters,” he said.
Efforts to analyze food-insecurity data can’t be done piecemeal, Wolfe said.
“Until we can actually map the need [and] map what we’re doing in real time … we’re not going to be able to make a dent in the problem,” he said.
Salmon and Tadele said the 2025 survey refutes some misconceptions about those facing food challenges.
Seventy-seven percent of those reported as food-insecure are employed, with an average annual income of $57,000 for a family of three. That suggests “food-insecure workers want pathways” to better employment, Tadele said.
The report noted that inflation in the region is up 21% over the past four years, while household incomes have risen only 6% on average.
“Household purchasing power has taken a major hit,” Salmon said. “The dollars simply aren’t stretching as far. People start making trade-offs.”
She added that the impacts of the government shutdown and ongoing layoffs in the federal workforce and contractors didn’t shown up in the new report, but they’re about to have a major impact regionally.
“We are early in understanding what the implications of everything that’s been happening for the past several months is going to look like,” Salmon said.
“It’s very possible that the picture has changed” for the worse since the survey was conducted in May, Tadele added. “As savings deplete … food insecurity may climb.”
After hearing the presentation, COG board members adopted a resolution calling for more food-security supports and urging the region’s congressional delegation to try and restore cuts to social services programs.
The federal government’s retraction of support “trickles down to every kind of person in our community, as well as our small businesses,” Rockville Mayor Monique Ashton said.
The report covers all areas of the local region that are part of COG, except for Loudoun County in Virginia and Frederick and Charles counties in Maryland, where Capital Area Food Bank does not operate.
Photo via Jacob McGowin/Unsplash
