They Won’t Officially Count New Hampshire’s Hungry Children Until 2028. They’re Hungry Now.

I read today that New Hampshire won’t have an official count of how many kids went hungry in 2025 or 2026 for another two years. They’re hungry now — and the numbers to see it already exist. Here’s what they show, and why the gap isn’t an accident.

I came across a story in the New Hampshire Bulletin today that I posted to Facebook, because it sounded so astonishingly horrible — about child hunger right here at home.

The article said we won’t know how many New Hampshire kids went hungry in 2025 or 2026 until two years from now.

Read that back. Two years.

I get it — data takes time, surveys run behind, reports don’t show up overnight. But what stuck with me wasn’t the process. It’s who we’re talking about. Not a spreadsheet. Not a statistic. Kids. Kids who are hungry tonight, in a state that just got called the best place in America to be a kid.

So I did some digging. Turns out, the numbers are there. We just haven’t put them where anyone can actually find them.

Did New Hampshire really say it won’t know until 2028?

For the one number everyone quotes — essentially, yes. The most-cited measure of child food insecurity, Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap, is frozen at its 2024 figure: 15.5% of New Hampshire children, about one in six. It won’t refresh until 2027 or 2028.

And it’s not just a slow report. The main federal survey — the one that gives us the national hunger numbers — was shut down in September 2025. The new version only gives us a national number, nothing for New Hampshire. So this isn’t just a wait-and-see. The tool we need is gone.

That’s where a boring data note turns into something that actually matters.

But aren’t the children hungry now?

Yes. And that’s what I can’t get past.

A hungry kid can’t file for an extension. She can’t wait two years for a survey to catch up. The gap between “we’ll know in 2028” and “she’s hungry at dinner tonight” isn’t just paperwork — it’s the whole problem. When the official count is two years behind and the tool to fix it is gone, those kids don’t stop being hungry. They just stop being counted.

Does the current data actually exist?

It does. That’s what got me going in the first place — and why I went looking.

New Hampshire’s own numbers are already here, and they’re all pointing the same way:

• SNAP enrollment among New Hampshire children is down 4.1% since June 2025.
• The state projects fewer children eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch next year.
• The New Hampshire Food Bank distributed a record 20 million pounds of food in 2025 — up 17%.

Three safety nets are shrinking while more people need help. You don’t need to wait for a 2028 report to see that. Every number here comes straight from the source — NH DHHS, the Department of Education, the Food Bank — on our full breakdown page.

So what is 603 Circle doing about it?

This is the whole reason 603 Circle exists.

When the official count misses people, we show what we can. I didn’t set out to write a report — the breakdown page does that, every number sourced. What I wanted was simple: to make sure the real numbers were out there. All in one place. Easy to find. So “we won’t know for a few more years” isn’t the end of the story — it’s the start of a better one.

Because the kids behind those numbers can’t wait.

Go deeper:

• The Missing Meal — the current NH child-hunger data, every figure sourced.
• The Cost of Love — when caring for a family member costs you the help you were promised.
• What is ALICE — the wall that keeps a third of New Hampshire families behind it.

Source: Skipworth, W. “Child food insecurity rose 6% in New Hampshire, according to Feeding America.” New Hampshire Bulletin, August 11, 2026. Every current figure cited here — SNAP enrollment, projected school-lunch eligibility, and NH Food Bank distribution — is sourced to its primary (NH DHHS, NH Department of Education, NH Food Bank) on The Missing Meal.