Food Security

All Floridians need resources to afford everyday necessities such as food. However, discriminatory laws, policies, and racist stereotypes that underpin Florida’s anti-hunger programs have prevented them from reaching their full potential, resulting in inequitable access to the benefits they offer and racial disparities in food security. For example, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food packages used to require participating children to take a carton of dairy milk with their meal even though 80 percent of Black and Indigenous children suffer from lactose intolerance. Additionally, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) imposes work requirements, time limits, and eligibility bans targeting immigrants and people convicted of drug trafficking. These barriers are especially troubling because people of color in Florida face higher rates of poverty and food insecurity as a result of habitual discrimination and structural racism.

A group of food assistance programs, including SNAP, WIC, and various school-related feeding programs such as the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the School Breakfast Program, and Summer BreakSpot, are effective in providing struggling Florida households with essential food benefits to supplement their grocery budgets and nutritional needs. However, despite the success of these programs, over one in 10 Floridians suffer from food insecurity, which means that they have limited or uncertain access to adequate food.

Although hunger affects Floridians of all races and ethnicities, Black households are especially impacted because they face substantially higher rates of food insecurity and poverty than white households due to racial inequalities that affect employment and earning opportunities. As a result, Black Floridians experience health disparities and are more likely to die from nutritional deficiencies than white Floridians. Nonetheless, many of the state’s food assistance programs have a history of excluding people of color through laws and policies, which has prevented Black and brown people from fully participating. Only deliberate and thoughtful reforms will ensure that all Floridians, regardless of their race or ethnicity, have equitable access to these programs.

Image Source: Florida Memory
Image Description: Two students putting up a bulletin board that reads “All roads lead to a good school lunch” with images of food walking toward a plate.