Federal budget cuts, food inflation hits Somerset County
Ben Tawney has a simple way to predict the rise of household hunger in Somerset County. “When you see fuel prices go up, you’ll see food prices go up and more people struggle. “We don’t know how long that’s going to last,” said Tawney, the executive director of the Somerset County Mobile Food Bank near…
Ben Tawney has a simple way to predict the rise of household hunger in Somerset County.
“When you see fuel prices go up, you’ll see food prices go up and more people struggle.
“We don’t know how long that’s going to last,” said Tawney, the executive director of the Somerset County Mobile Food Bank near Bakersville and the nonprofit’s only full-time employee.
The mobile food bank – and agencies like it around the country – are seeing demand inch up as the result of spiraling food and fuel costs since the start of the Iran war. And consumers are feeling the pinch.
At the same time, cuts to federal funding have begun to show up in Somerset County.
Prices for gasoline at the pump have risen to $4.15 to $4.22 a gallon in western Pennsylvania from $2.98 to $3 a gallon before the U.S. and Israel attack on Iran Feb. 28, according to Cleveland, Ohio-based AAA East Central, which tracks prices weekly.
But rising fuel prices aren’t the only problem.
Overall food prices were expected to rise 2.5% to 3.1% this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and a 2025 study published by Oklahoma City-based ConsumerAffairs found that grocery prices in Pennsylvania had risen the highest in the U.S. during the previous year, up 8.2% – and rural areas, like Somerset County, were hit hardest.
Vermont and Maryland each clocked in second place with increases of 7% each.
The sting of food inflation was felt most in Zip codes where the average annual income ranged between $35,000 and $50,000, according to the study. That would include a cluster of low-income towns in northern and western Somerset County: Shanksville, which has the lowest average income in the county; Confluence, Boswell, Garrett and Rockwood among them.
Somerset County’s typical household income is $60,000 to $63,000, well below the state average of $77,000.
Rural grocery prices tend to be higher in small towns compared to urban areas because the stores are supplied by wholesalers rather than direct purchases from manufacturers, something that Somerset County Mobile Food Bank founder Rev. Barry Ritenour identified in a 2011 study.
In his analysis, Ritenour found that people living in rural areas were paying $3,500 to $5,000 more per year for the same food, partly due to the limited number of stores. The mobile food bank was launched in 2012.
Today, the Somerset County Mobile Food Bank, like food banks across the country, is facing the loss of free USDA meat, eggs and other food items due to federal budget cuts last year. The impact on the mobile food bank, which has an annual budget of about $100,000, was still being sorted out, Tawney said.
What seems certain though is the mobile food bank will have to increase reliance on donations this year for purchases to make up for the loss of the USDA food, he said.
In 2025, the USDA canceled or paused about $500 million in Temporary Emergency Food Assistance funding, ending an important source of food for the needy, including about 1,700 families a month that are served by the mobile food bank.
“All of a sudden here we are,” Tawney said. “It does hurt operations like ours. Having that cut affects not only me, but all of the other programs.
“Most people walking down the street don’t realize that hunger is all around you,” he said.
Despite rising demand for the food bank, Tawney encouraged people in need to reach out for help. The mobile food bank, one of food agencies serving Somerset County, has 12 distribution sites supported by more than 250 volunteers.
“There is great access to food support that some counties don’t have,” Tawney said. “There’s options out there for you.”
Somerset County’s lowest income Zip codes:
Shanksville
Wellersburg
Confluence
Garrett
Boswell
Acosta
Sipesville
Rockwood
Windber
Cairnbrook
Source: U.S. Census estimates