Credit Card Debt & Food Insecurity

Credit Card Debt & Food Insecurity

By Chris Carbone 

  We have spoken in the past about something called the “food cliff,” a term describing the painful reality experienced by low-income families when food prices increase and the social safety net created to save them, like SNAP benefits, are cut. There is then a space between the cost of food, and the money needed to obtain it. They are below—looking up with all the hope they can muster whilst the promise of sustenance cruelly looks down upon them. 

  You get the picture. 

  More recently, the scale of said cliff has increased rather drastically. Food prices skyrocketing, coupled with unprecedented cuts to food assistance programs have folks seriously considering taking measures that, while they may make them food-secure for a week or month, may end up hurting them more in the long run. 

  A recent Urban Institute study took a look at how families paid for groceries in 2025, and they found that over 1 in 4 working-age adults used credit cards to purchase food and experienced repayment challenges—with nearly 1 in 10 reporting the use of By Now, Pay Later options (1 in 3 of these folks missed payments). Additionally, folks reported dipping into savings and using payday loans to feed their families. 

  Data like this, while rooted in the moment, looks simultaneously to the past and future. It harkens, sadly, back to the many dark chapters of history that are replete with folks having to do desperate things to provide for their families, while looking forward via the question, how are we still here, and will we be ten years from now? It points, in fact, to one of the most timeless and, likely, painful aspects of being food-insecure: it all comes down to a choice. A choice between food or the electric bill; between sustenance and health insurance—having to deem, forcibly, one human necessity a priority over another. All the “progress” we purport to make in the world does not whitewash these facts; these incursions of apathy into the fabric of humanity.

  These are all sure signs of a broken system, and serve as signs that the work we do does not have time to catch a breath. 

Read the full report here: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2026-07/Final_Many%20Families%20Rely%20on%20Credit%20and%20Savings%20to%20Afford%20Groceries%20%281%29.pdf