Hunger grips West Virginia coal country amid Trump budget cuts and rising gas prices

“There’s a good chance we could run out,” said Likens, who runs the pantry in Dunlow as director of community outreach for Cabwaylingo Presbyterian Chapel, a small brick church he attended growing up.

“I don’t want them to sit in that line and get nothing,” he said. “But I don’t have much extra food these days.”

Increasingly, the task of feeding the nation’s hungry falls to ordinary Americans like Likens, who have become the last line of defense against hunger in a land of plenty.

Likens and others on the front lines of feeding their neighbors say they are facing unprecedented challenges brought on by Washington. Food distribution programs are receiving less food from federal programs to feed the hungry after the Trump administration’s budget cuts. At the same time, restrictions on food stamps imposed by the Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” have boosted demand, while rising gasoline prices due to the war in Iran have squeezed household and food bank budgets.

The challenges extend far beyond Appalachia. An NBC News survey of 48 of the largest food banks in 35 states and Washington, D.C., found that nearly three-quarters said more people were showing up at their doors over the past year, from workers on their lunch break to seniors overwhelmed by medical bills. At the same time, more than 80% said the food and funding they received from the U.S. Department of Agriculture had decreased and they faced higher fuel costs for transporting food.

In Maine, the Good Shepherd Food Bank said the USDA reduced the amount of food received from 13 million pounds to 9 million pounds in one year. A Michigan food bank, Forgotten Harvest, said it was handing out less food to make sure there was enough for everyone: one bag of potatoes instead of two, two pots of yogurt instead of six.

“People are facing multiple budget challenges,” said Poonam Gupta, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, a think tank that studies social and economic issues. “It is really difficult to find a way to continue to provide a healthy, nutritious and balanced diet when you are satisfied with these constant intakes. »

Food bank woes began early in President Donald Trump’s second term when officials scrapped a $400 million Covid-era program aimed at supplying food banks with food from local farmers and suspended about $500 million in other planned USDA food purchases. Funding from Congress for a separate, decades-old program to provide emergency food assistance to food banks has increased in recent years, but many food bank leaders said they still receive less overall than under the Biden administration.

Trump also enacted new restrictions on who can receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps, requiring nearly all able-bodied adults not caring for young children to work, volunteer or attend school at least 80 hours a month. Since the law was signed into law, more than 5 million people, including at least 1 million children, have lost their food benefits.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly defended the administration’s policies, saying Trump is “making all Americans financially better off” through tax cuts and efforts to increase employment and business investment.

“President Trump is strengthening SNAP for Americans who need it by ensuring these programs are sustainable for future generations,” Kelly said, including taking steps to “crack down on waste, fraud and abuse.”