Lombardo-Trump Economy: 1 in 6 Southern Nevada Residents Are Food Insecure

As Nevada food banks are overwhelmed with record demand, new reporting shows that 400,000 Southern Nevada residents faced food insecurity in 2024 — nearly a 20,000-person increase from the previous year. Since then, the state’s hunger crisis has only worsened after Donald Trump’s disastrous budget bill that Joe Lombardo said Nevadans should be “excited” about.

While Lombardo caves to Trump’s cost-raising policies, over 75,000 Nevadans have had their food assistance taken away, all as the State of Nevada has to absorb tens of millions in downshifted budget costs. In fact, when 500,000 Nevadans lost SNAP benefits due to Trump’s government shut down, Lombardo jetted to Washington, DC for a $5,000-a-plate fundraiser to beg for Trump’s endorsement.

Las Vegas Review-Journal: 1 in 6 Southern Nevada residents deemed to be food insecure in 2024, new report finds

Key Points:

Motorists began to line up on roads surrounding Broadacres Marketplace last week, well ahead of a Three Square food giveaway amid increasingly punishing temperatures.
The twice-weekly events have drawn as many as 500 vehicles and 100 pedestrians each day, Three Square President and CEO Beth Martino told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The mammoth food bank also supplies dozens of Southern Nevada nonprofit food pantries.
“People are willing to come out and sit in their car for an hour and a half or walk up when it’s over 100 degrees outside,” said Martino, underscoring rising food insecurity in the region.
Feeding America — Three Square’s national counterpart — recently updated its annual Map the Meal Gap report that highlights food insecurity across the United States.
Southern Nevada, according to the findings, was home to nearly 400,000 food-insecure residents in 2024, or about a 20,000-person increase from the previous year.
That means that one in six residents lacked enough food to live an active, healthy life, per federal guidelines, according to Three Square, which serves the Nevada counties of Clark, Nye, Lincoln and Esmeralda.
The Southern Nevada food bank distributed nearly 60 million pounds of food during its last fiscal year, “a significant increase over recent years,” the nonprofit said.
“We’ve definitely seen prices at the grocery store continue to rise. We all know that prices at the gas pump are higher,” Martino said. “So, whether it’s groceries or gas prices, all of those things today are affecting the people we serve.”
Transportation, she said, is one of the biggest barriers to accessing food, adding that the cost of owning a vehicle, including insurance costs, isn’t helping.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July 2025 by President Donald Trump, expanded requirements for many adult SNAP recipients to work, volunteer or participate in job training for at least 80 hours a month.
In late July, Nevada’s SNAP had a monthly average of 440,115 enrollees, a decrease from nearly half a million beneficiaries reported in late 2025, when Nevada implemented a funding stopgap after the government shutdown led to a benefits pause.

Martino said that not everyone who exited the program did so because they didn’t qualify, adding that administrative changes also made it harder to apply.

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