The National Insurance Institute’s (NII) 2024 Food Security Report presents a broad picture of the nutritional status in Israeli society and shows only partial improvement compared to the previous year.
According to the Institute’s Research and Planning Administration, 27.1% of households – about 968,000 families comprising 2.8 million people, including more than one million children – faced food insecurity due to economic reasons. This reflects a decrease from 2023, when the rate stood at 30.8%, but remains high compared to OECD countries.
The data point to significant gaps between population groups and geographic areas: 58% of households in the Arab sector, 25% in the haredi community, and 37% in Jerusalem suffered from food insecurity. The share of individuals living in food-insecure households stood at 28.1%, and the rate among children reached 31.7%. Among senior citizens, the rate was 22.8% – still high, though lower than the previous year. The NII notes that part of the improvement stems from the war, during which hundreds of thousands of citizens were evacuated to hotels and guest facilities where they received regular meals.
The report highlights the direct link between income levels and food security: in the lowest income quintile, 47.6% of households lived with food insecurity, compared to only 9.5% in the highest quintile. In addition, 26.5% of families reported that they were unable to afford healthy food. This figure was particularly high in the haredi and Arab sectors – 33.0% and 30.8% respectively. In the Arab population, the rate of food insecurity was significantly higher than the rate of limited access to healthy food, while in the Jewish population the trend was reversed.
The consequences of the phenomenon, according to the report, extend to the macroeconomic level as well: reduced labor productivity, higher rates of chronic illness and increased health-care costs, and deeper dependence on welfare benefits. According to NII professionals, a one-percentage-point decrease in food insecurity could save the economy tens of millions of shekels annually.
The report calls for the creation of a national plan that includes increasing food-assistance budgets, expanding school meal programs, adjusting welfare benefits to match the cost of living, and establishing measurable multi-year targets to reduce disparities.