How employers are addressing food insecurity driven by SNAP cuts, inflation

A recent temporary disruption to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) served as a reminder of how many Americans rely on these governmental supports to keep themselves and their families fed. This is true even for Americans who are earning an income.

More than half of all US households classified as “food-insecure” had at least one adult working full-time between 2017 and 2023, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

People who rely on food banks are “not the people that you think that they are,” said Dilip Rao, CEO and co-founder of Sharebite, a meal benefits platform. “They have at least one job, they qualify as gainfully employed. They might also be on SNAP.”

Recognizing that a paycheck doesn’t always go far enough to pay for groceries, some employers are exploring ways to make up the difference through their total rewards programs.

Meal stipends, food banks. In recent years food has emerged as one promising lever to encourage workers to come back into the office. Fifty percent of employers said they offered free or subsidized meals as a way to create a more appealing in-office work environment, according to staffing firm Robert Half’s 2026 salary guide.

Employers in sectors ranging from finance to tech to automotives enlist Sharebite to provide meal stipends to their workers, according to Rao. Boosting return-to-office rates is one reason company executives may invest in such benefits, he said, but food stipends can also play a larger role in addressing the hunger crisis, he argued.

Rao noted that a number of countries, like Brazil and Belgium, provide tax incentives to companies that give their workers meal vouchers. Policymakers who want to solve the hunger crisis in the US would be smart to enlist the private sector, he said. If workers are fed at the office, “then that then translates to one less meal that that family has to pay for at home.”

Stipends aren’t the only way companies can support workers who may be food insecure. In May of this year, a skilled nursing and senior care facility in Bridgeport, Ct., started stocking a food pantry for its employees. “We’re in a really competitive industry. Finding health care workers is a challenge. So we’re always looking for innovative ways to be an employer of choice and maintain our ‘top workplace’ status,” Kara Rodriguez, the facility’s CHRO, told CTPost.

St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, New Hampshire, also runs a food pantry for its employees through a donor-based employee wellness fund.

Walmart, the largest private employer in the US, expanded its 10% employee discount in August to apply to nearly all grocery purchases in the store (items like milk and meat were previously excluded). Target and Whole Foods offer similar employee discounts.

Emergency relief funds. Relief funds are one more potential pathway for employers seeking to support workers with limited food budgets. Canary, an employee relief fund service, recently added a new category that allows employers to deliver emergency payments to workers who were affected by the SNAP cuts.

About one-fifth of Canary’s 75 clients opted to add this category to their emergency relief fund program, Catherine Scagnelli, Canary’s head of marketing, told us. The platform enables relief payments to workers affected by events like natural disasters and catastrophic car issues, and Scagnelli said food is often the “second-most needed expense” that employees apply for after housing.

Employers that work with Canary typically set a 90-day lookback period, she added, meaning workers who lost food assistance in November would still be able to apply for a grant through next February. Some SNAP beneficiaries have yet to see their payments resume due to tech issues in states like Mississippi and West Virginia.

Scagnelli said interest in SNAP-related grants shows a growing recognition among employers that food insecurity can affect the workplace. “I think our clients recognize, if people are going hungry, they’re coming into work unfocused. They’re not coming into work, they’re not able to do the things they have to do because…you need to eat.”