Dinner or the Light Bill: The cost of hunger in NYC | This Robin Hood Moment

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Robin Hood is partnering with Propel, Inc. and GiveDirectly to launch an emergency fund for New York’s lowest-income SNAP recipients during the pause in federal payments. Learn more.

Interested in learning more about the Food Bank For New York City? Visit foodbanknyc.org.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at info@robinhood.org.

“This Robin Hood Moment” is hosted by Kevin Thompson and Crystal Cooper. The show is produced and edited by Cory Winter, with graphic design by Mary Power. Additional motion graphics and footage are provided by Motion Array. Our theme music is from Epidemic Sound.

The views and opinions expressed by external podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Robin Hood or its personnel, nor does Robin Hood advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.

TRANSCRIPT

This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Kevin Thompson: From Robin Hood—New York City’s largest poverty-fighting philanthropy—I’m Kevin Thompson. Welcome to “This Robin Hood Moment.”

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Kevin Thompson: Imagine you’re a parent in New York City, working a full-time job—and still unable to afford groceries for your kids.

You’ve already paid the rent, barely. Your OMNI card is running low. And now you’re standing in the cereal aisle, calculating whether you can afford the milk.

That’s the cost of choice.

And this year, that choice has become even harder. There are 1.8 million New Yorkers who rely on SNAP—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—to put food on the table.

According to Robin Hood’s Poverty Tracker, the number of New Yorkers struggling to meet their food needs has grown significantly since before the pandemic. Back then, one in four New Yorkers said they needed more money to afford enough food. Today: one in three! And for families with children, the picture is even more dire: more than 40 percent—that’s up from 34 percent before the pandemic—say they can’t afford enough food for their households.

And while programs like SNAP continue to prevent the worst outcomes, they’re so fragile. We’re seeing that right now, as the spigot for SNAP funds has been shut off (at the time of this recording). With the federal government shutdown disrupting funding, the USDA has warned that without an appropriation from Congress, benefits can’t be issued for November—leaving millions of families unsure how they’ll put food on the table.

These aren’t just numbers. They’re meals. They’re choices.

Do I skip lunch to afford insulin?

Do I stretch one meal over two days?

Do I ask my ten-year-old to go to bed hungry?

At Robin Hood, we’ve seen what happens when even one layer of support is removed. Hunger doesn’t exist in isolation—it sets off a domino effect that topples everything else: health, housing, and stability.

That’s why today, I’m joined by the ever-insightful Crystal Cooper (my colleague) to dig into what these findings mean for New Yorkers—and to talk with someone who understands this crisis intimately: Leslie Gordon, President & CEO of Food Bank For New York City.

She’s helped distribute millions of meals across all five boroughs—and she’s leading the charge to protect the programs that make those meals possible.

But before we begin, if you’re listening to this episode after November 17, dive into the findings of Robin Hood’s 2025 Poverty Tracker report on Food Hardship; you can read them at robinhood.org, and of course, send me your guest suggestions at info@robinhood.org.

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Kevin Thompson: Crystal, that one in three number really sticks with me. It’s not just a statistic—it’s a window into how fragile life in this city has become. When a third of New Yorkers say they don’t have enough money to cover their food needs, it means the margin for survival has disappeared or is disappearing.

Crystal Cooper: So many of us live at that invisible margin. And that’s what we mean when we talk about the cost of choice. Because when your budget can’t stretch to cover food, it’s not just your grocery list that shrinks—it’s your fundamental sense of control. You start trading off things no one should have to: skipping a meal to make rent, cutting back on heat so your kids can eat.

Kevin Thompson: Right. And even for people who are living at 200% or 300% above the poverty line, those choices are relentless. Every price hike, every delayed benefit, every policy debate trickles down to the same moment of arithmetic at the checkout counter: Can I afford this

Crystal Cooper: And what’s so painful is how normalized that stress has become. People plan their lives around shortage—stretching meals, splitting portions, rationing time. You can’t think about thriving when every week is about making the math work.

Kevin Thompson: That’s why Leslie Gordon’s perspective is so vital here. She’s not just leading one of New York’s largest food providers—she’s witnessing those tradeoffs every day. From food pantries to policy tables, she’s fighting for a system that gives people back the one thing poverty takes away first: choice.

Crystal Cooper: And dignity. Because no one should have to lose their dignity—or their agency—just to eat.

Kevin Thompson: Let’s bring Leslie Gordon into the conversation.

Leslie, welcome to the show!

Leslie Gordon: Delighted to be with you!

Kevin Thompson: We’re so happy to have you. Leslie, I want to start our conversation today by you giving our listeners a little bit of a sense of who the Food Bank of New York City is and where you all fit in the food, hardship space.

Leslie Gordon: At Food Bank for New York City—we are your city’s food bank. Our formal mission is to empower every New Yorker to achieve food security for good. We are your anchor partner here in this city who is at the heart of a network of about 800 on the ground partners nearly every neighborhood across our great city in the five boroughs.

At the heart of that are food pantries and soup kitchens and shelters and senior centers and K through 12 schools and higher education campuses and health clinics and the like, who help us get good, nutritious food and culturally and religiously relevant food. Food that matters to people. Into their hands, as often as they need it.

You know, I call it RS5. So the right food at the right time to the right people, in the right amounts. That’s food bank for New York City. What’s interesting, though, is that if you ask people what we do, what you may not hear them say is the work that we do beyond food for today. And that’s critical, right?

Ultimately, what we’re in the business of doing is helping to get people to be off the line, to be in a better, economically stable place as an individual and at the household level. So that we’re taking more stress off of them and they’re really on their way to living their best life and thriving. There’s a couple of ways in which we do that.

We are one of your city’s largest organizations working on Snap, formerly called food stamps. We’ve heard a lot about Snap in the press recently by way of, the one big beautiful bill or the reconciliation bill. And the very unfortunate cuts that are coming, on snap. So we helped facilitate getting people, enrolled in Snap and helping them to essentially determine, do I qualify for this or do I not qualify?

We’ve also had a longtime roving team that teaches, financial education free of charge across the five boroughs, helping people to understand how to budget. What is a budget? What’s credit? How do I build and monitor my credit? So we work on both sides of the problem, which, of course, is really important.

Crystal Cooper: Leslie, I just curious about your background. You’ve spent 20 years in hunger relief with the third generation food justice chops to prove it. What does that mean? And how do you view your work as it relates to dignity, choice and self-sufficiency?

Leslie Gordon: Yeah. It’s, you know, when you do what you love, it’s hard to believe that that many years, can be behind you. I’ve had the pleasure now of working at, three food banks here in New York State. Not intentional. I would call it a happy accident. And I indeed carry on family legacy in doing this work.

My grandfather, Norman Goldberg, was the first in my family to, do good in this space of food insecurity. You know, what’s interesting is, is that food banks didn’t really exist in the, you know, pre 1980s era. It was, a lot of, community mineshaft and people coming together to help feed each other. So in his case, it was a local synagogue where, he was living at the time in Tarrytown, New York.

That would give him a phone call. The rabbi would call. You would get the name of a family that needed help, a little bit of information about them. And as my mother tells the story, and she would be the second generation thereafter, she would, you know, he would take her by the arm. They would go to a local grocery store, get groceries for a family, typically end up at a fourth floor walkup apartment building, and you would drop the groceries, ring the bell, and go, because you always wanted to preserve the dignity of the person that you were helping.

Yeah. And, you know, for him, it was very personal. He grew up in an area of Rockland County that was then, called, of all things, pot cheese. Hollow. And if you want to know what pot cheese is, it was a European name. Still resonates today for what we call, of all things cottage cheese. That area now is referred to as Spring Valley, New York.

Unfortunately, still a very low income area in, in Rockland County. But, you know, some days the only thing that he had to eat was an apple off a neighboring farmer’s tree. There prize possession was a dairy cow. In later years, he did well in business and had an opportunity to be, you know, philanthropically engaged. And so he did that work, via the synagogue.

And then fast forward the the second generation of my family, if you will, to be, engaged in food insecurity would have been, my mom, IRA Gordon, who spent 35 years uniquely as a woman. In fact, in a man’s world, running the world’s largest wholesale produce terminal, which is based in the de part of the South Bronx in the Hunts Point Peninsula.

A lot of your food that ends up in, you know, green carts or at local bodegas or greengrocers in the city, larger supermarket chains, restaurants and all comes through that market. Product comes in from over 35 foreign countries in almost every state in the US. By air shipping container, by, by rail or by freight truck.

And then fast forward, it is in some sense, to her credit, that food banking came on my radar screen because I was always interested in what happens to the excess food that spins out of, the wholesale and agricultural industry. And here I am, almost 20 years later.

Crystal Cooper: That’s incredible.

Kevin Thompson: That that is this incredible story. And I would imagine, you know, with that sort of deep insight, you might be able to tell us a little bit about the kinds of choices that you have found that people are forced to make between putting food on the table and paying other essentials, like rent or child care or medicine. And maybe more to the point, you know, have you in your current role, you know, engage with clients who make these trade offs that someone who’s never, you know, faced food insecurity before might not even imagine people having to make these kinds of decisions. I’d love for you to share an example of something like that for our listeners.

Leslie Gordon: Yeah. So what I would say is that, you know, Rent Eats first, very unfortunately, you can’t decide not to pay rent or you can’t decide not to pay your utility bill. And so, you know, as an example, parents often have to make, difficult choices. Over the years in this work, I’ve heard stories about you folks, watering down drinks to make them last longer, or, parents or caregivers who make the very difficult choice at the dinner table to feed their kids first.

And whatever is, is left over from dinner is what they have. If indeed, you know, anything, is left at all. What’s what’s important to note for folks who are listening is that a lot of the people who we’re talking about are working families. Very typically the sensibility is, is that they they must be people who, are homeless, don’t have a job, for example.

And that’s that’s just not the case, at all. And so if if someone’s facing these challenges and putting food on their table, they’re very likely facing other challenges in their life, which is important to note. So transportation challenges, housing challenges, underemployment, unemployment, and the like. And so a food bank for New York City were here working on, as I shared just earlier, both sides of of the problem.

Crystal Cooper: So you’ve told us a bit about, you know, some of these choices that they have to make day to day just to make food stretch or to make budgets stretch? How does the rising cost of food change the way that people shop or even cook and, and, you know, think about accessing food and how is the food bank kind of helping them to do that?

Leslie Gordon: It’s I’ll tell you, it’s inherently stressful, right? Imagine so. You know, I, privileged enough to be able to go to the grocery store and likely not think too much about it, but what I do notice, and I bet folks who are listening who shop noticed this as well, that your dollars just don’t go as far.

You could be $100 later and walk out with with a bag. Imagine, right? Yes. And imagine what that must be like for for someone who is, super stressed. There’s a couple things I would say. One is, is it a food bank for New York City? We look at something called the meal gap. So this is the difference between how many healthy, nutritious meals families actually eat versus, you know, the the three per day standard.

And the gap is in the multi-millions, despite concerted and intentional efforts by us and other other hunger relief organizations. And so, due to the increasing cost of living overall, the increasing cost of food, more New Yorkers are in a position of needing to do more with less and then turn to us at food Bank for New York City for resources.

You know, it’s it’s tough. Over the years, I’ve talked to clients who, walk into a grocery store and feel as if it’s the food that they see is not for them. You know, imagine yourself getting to the checkout counter and you’re so stressed or not really sure that everything that you put in the cart is something that you can afford.

And then it gets it’s humbling and embarrassing at the same time where you have to start to to put some food back. It’s not a great situation. And so, you know, again, in our case, many of our neighbors who visit our community kitchen and pantry in West Harlem on 116th Street, where we’ve been for decades, have expressed that, you know, the only time they might eat is the the time that they visit us, for a meal at our community kitchen.

Wow. So there are New Yorkers who go without.

Crystal Cooper: I guess that’s where SNAP, you know, sometimes comes in as, as a supplement or you know, for these families who are experiencing that level of food hardship. And you’ve talked about it already. But what do cuts to snap of any magnitude really mean for people that you serve. And how might they have to change their daily choices if that support is reduced?

Leslie Gordon: You know, contextually, let’s dive in for a minute. So there’s over 1.8 million people in New York City that rely on Snap to help buy groceries. You know what’s what’s interesting about that? Is it the preponderance or the majority of those people? It’s kids that are benefiting from it. It’s our older, adults. It’s our veterans. It’s, low wage workers or quite frankly, people who are just having trouble making ends meet.

You know, here in New York City, you have to make an average minimum of $100,000, and in some boroughs, a little bit more than $100,000 just to meet your basic needs. And so imagine how many people you know are not at that income threshold. And then for the folks that are relying on Snap, it’s even more difficult with the onset of the reconciliation bill or what has been commonly referred to as the one big beautiful bill.

Unfortunately, that’s now come with an increasing amount of of red tape, including some very burdensome paperwork and expanded work requirements. And so a lot of people would love to be able to benefit from Snap, but now they’re going to take a step back because, you know, there’s a lot of trauma. It’s very stressful to have to think about stepping through an additional number of hurdles just to get snap.

The bill also eliminated something called snap. So running along and quite frankly, almost hiding in this reconciliation bill was a cut of about $530 million, which, taken together, is that much larger bill. This was a drop in the bucket. But that snap, cut of $530 million in the bill has had a real impact on, of all things, nutrition education.

So at Food Bank for New York City for decades now, really more than 30 years, we’ve been one of the largest nutrition education curricula in the New York City school system. And so that cut has forced us to, to sunset. Our community nutrition education programs, which really help folks on limited incomes appreciate how to better shop, cook and and eat healthy for kids.

It helps to, introduce them to new foods, broaden their food vocabulary. And, you know, when you’re on a limited budget, it’s tough for parents to take chances and introduce kids to new things for fear that they won’t eat it. And so this is a really wonderful way to introduce kids to new and exciting, nutritious foods. It’s really unfortunate, but, this forced loss is really hindering, some health equity and ultimately, health outcomes.

Kevin Thompson: Leslie, you’ve painted a really stark picture here of, you know what some of the impacts might be. I want to go back to what you were talking about, the meal gap. That’s such an interesting concept. And just think about the issue in a different way for our listeners. If I were able if you were able as a family to actually realize the the meal gap and satisfy that, right? What does that access to having, you know, the food that you need that’s healthy, that’s affordable, that’s nutritious. How does that influence a family’s ability to keep their to keep their home, to maintain their health, to pursue job opportunities? In other words, you know, like, what kind of life are they able to live versus people that, you know, are still sort of dealing with those challenges?

Leslie Gordon: Yeah. So like food insecurity is a bit of, a connector and helps to create a stable home, you know, supports good health without access to food. You know, families are really facing an increased risk of depression, fatigue, anxiety, osteoporosis, cognitive challenges. The issues can impact, school performance not only right now, but in the future. Job stability, daily life.

It’s stressful. It’s it’s traumatic. There have been, in fact, evidence based studies to suggest that folks who don’t have enough resources are in a constant state of fight or flight. And in that constant state of fight or flight, it’s hard to make, good decisions for yourself. You know, we very likely I don’t know about all of you personally, but I’m going to make some assumptions here for a minute that we have the the luxury of stepping back to consider different factors to to do research, to inform good decision making, to to plan.

Unfortunately, life gets very complicated very quickly when you don’t have enough resources and you’re just in a constant state of, fear or stress.

Kevin Thompson: Yeah, and what do you normally say to folks who, who are just unfamiliar with those kinds of having to make those kinds of tradeoffs to help them sort of better understand when it comes to food, what the cost of choice really means for families.

Leslie Gordon: It’s it’s very emotional. There’s there’s just no two ways about it. It’s absolutely emotional. And I’ll offer, a bit of a story. We offer pet food at our distribution because it. Food bank for New York City. We believe that pets are family members, too. I don’t know if you have furry friends at home, but I certainly do.

And, you know, since we know that neighbors are struggling to to feed themselves and their families, it’s likely that they’re struggling to feed their pets as well. And this has happened more than once. A woman who came to one of our distributions with, three kids in tow. She’s a single mom. And when they picked up pet food, some one of our food backers asked what kind of pet do you have at home?

And then the mother was just really honest and authentic in that moment and said, we don’t have a pet.

Kevin Thompson: Wow.

Leslie Gordon: At home, but that sometimes when there isn’t enough food for everyone.

Crystal Cooper: That’s heartbreaking.

Leslie Gordon: It is in the household, you know, mom would consume the pet food while her kids enjoy, you know, as close to a full meal as possible. And so I think this is an example of a decision that many people can’t fathom, right? Having to eat pet food just so your kids can eat. And it happens.

Crystal Cooper: I am I am floored by that. Leslie. I want to continue on this thread of just thinking about the people, the people at the heart of this experience, here in New York City, our neighbors. Maybe there’s a story that really sticks with you about a parent, or a veteran, or an elder person who has had to stretch their snap benefits to the very last dollar or beyond. If anything comes to mind.

Leslie Gordon: You know, people think that, snap is is a lot of money. And so snap is, a supplement to an overall household budget, but it it certainly matters. I cannot overstate that. And so, we do have many seniors that come to our community kitchen in West Harlem for hot meals during the week. We’ve heard a lot of stories like this.

We’ve got, one woman who lost her job as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic. You know, during that era, her snap benefits, which increased during that period, were enough to nearly sustain her. But now they’re down to about $100 a month. Here’s, So take this in for a minute. She has a family member with special needs who needs to live in an inpatient facility with 24 hour care.

So here’s what she does. She uses the the snap money to buy food for her family member. So fresh fruits and things she enjoys that aren’t provided at the care facility. And she says, well, look, if if I don’t help feed my family member and take care of her in the most meaningful of ways and the ways in which she needs and wants, who’s going to do that?

And so she visits our community kitchen knowing that we’re going to take care of her. And then she’s leveraging those those snap dollars to to take care of a family member. And there’s there’s tens of thousands if not millions of stories like that are across nearby.

Crystal Cooper: Something that’s coming through with both of these stories is that the cost of choice is really having to put yourself last and, you know, put the needs of those you love ahead of you. And even if the circumstance is really dire, you know.

Leslie Gordon: Very well said. So New York City is a big place. Let’s say we’re a city of about 8.4 8.5 million people. Of those, at minimum, there’s about 1.4 million of them who don’t always know when their next meal is going to be, where it’s coming from, what it will be, and they’re there. Quite frankly, a lot of people who aren’t counted in that number.

And so I feel fairly confident that the numbers is unfortunately much larger. The average rate of food insecurity across our city is about 16%. In the communities that are the most underserved in our city, that rate of food insecurity could rise as high as 2,324%. You know, communities that come to mind, or several in the deep part of the South Bronx that, have long been in a place of of being underserved.

It’s a really big number. And it’s it’s hard to think about, you know, food insecurity is is invisible. You can’t really see it. You can’t identify it. You might see someone standing on line, at a local pantry or, community kitchen to get a hot meal. But you’d be very, very surprised about who might be food insecure in in their household.

It could be a colleague of yours who, you know, is, sidled with, with debt and having, again, trouble making ends meet because the cost of living is so expensive here in New York City. If we’re to zero out and go back to 30,000ft level for a minute and look at it as a nationwide problem, food insecurity, you know, there’s nearly 45 million people in the United States who, don’t have a reliable, predictable way of getting access to three nutritious meals a day.

And it just shouldn’t be that way in a city is as wealthy as ours in a country, as resource laden as ours, with food that could really help everyone in need.

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Kevin Thompson: Before we close, we want to acknowledge what’s happened since our conversation with Leslie Gordon. On November 1st, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP, was suspended due to the ongoing federal government shutdown. That means the 1.8 million New York City residents who rely on SNAP benefits to feed themselves and their families will be forced to go without.

Crystal Cooper: Yes, Kevin. And this will be a tremendous challenge for the entire country.  Millions of Americans—more than 42 million people across the country—didn’t get the money they depend on to buy groceries. Three million of those people live here in New York State, which means families in every county of the state and all five boroughs of New York City are suddenly facing empty fridges and impossible choices.

Kevin Thompson: SNAP is supposed to be a mandatory program, but it’s funded through an annual congressional appropriation. And until Congress approves funding, the dollars simply will not be available to feed people.

Crystal Cooper: Researchers at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy found that missing even one month of SNAP benefits could push 35,000 New Yorkers into poverty—23,000 of them here in the city.

Kevin Thompson: That’s not just a statistic. That’s tens of thousands of our neighbors who did nothing wrong—who are now bearing the consequences of political gridlock in Washington.

Crystal Cooper: It’s devastating. For families already living paycheck to paycheck, one missed benefit can mean missed meals, mounting debt, and a loss of stability that takes months, sometimes years, to rebuild.

Kevin Thompson: We’ll share resources in the show notes for anyone who wants to understand what’s happening or help—including links to New York City’s Department of Social Services and the USDA—the agency that administers the SNAP program.

Crystal Cooper: This moment really drives home what we’ve been exploring all season: the cost of choice. When the systems designed to protect people break down, those choices vanish. It’s not just about food, it’s about dignity, agency, and survival.

Kevin Thompson: And that’s why this fight matters. Poverty isn’t the result of personal failure; often, it is the result of policy failure. And right now, that failure is unfolding in real time. I’m Kevin Thompson.

Crystal Cooper: And I’m Crystal Cooper. Thank you for listening. If you are interested and inspired to get involved, visit our website at robinhood.org to learn how you can invest in Robin Hood and enable all New Yorkers to live choice-filled lives. Until next time.

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Crystal Cooper: No one should have to choose between keeping the lights on and putting food on the table—but for too many New Yorkers, that’s the daily reality.

Robin Hood fights poverty by partnering with organizations like the Food Bank for New York City to make sure every New Yorker has access to healthy, affordable food—and the dignity that comes with it.

To hear what that struggle looks like up close, listen to the companion episode, “Monique’s Choice: The price of a full plate.” It’s a story about perseverance, community, and what it takes to feed a family when every dollar counts.

Because behind every policy, there’s a person. And behind every person, there’s the fight for a fairer New York.

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