In front of a bakery in the popular Marj neighborhood in Cairo, Iman Abdel Fattah flips through the bills in her hand, trying to calculate the amount of bread she can buy after her family was excluded from the government food support system.
Abdel Fattah, 42, a mother of four children, told AFP: “In the past, we were afraid that our money would not be enough to buy meat, but now we are afraid that it will not be enough to buy bread.”
Since about 850,000 people were excluded from the support system last June, they have been paying the price of local bread up to ten times the subsidized price, according to data from the Egyptian Ministry of Supply.
Baladi bread is an essential ingredient in the diet of millions of Egyptians, as it is almost never absent from daily meals, especially among families with limited income.
The measures come as part of a government plan to reduce the cost of one of the largest food subsidy programs in the world. It is expected that exclusions will expand to include millions of people by next year, as part of economic reforms implemented by Egypt with support from the International Monetary Fund.
The government confirms that lifting support will be limited to those it describes as “undeserving.” However, a number of those affected say that the indicators used to determine those eligible, such as children’s enrollment in private schools, do not necessarily reflect the family’s income level or their ability to bear the costs of living.
The restructuring of the support system coincides with a severe economic crisis during which Egypt witnessed the devaluation of its currency several times. This has led to the erosion of savings and the rise in prices of basic goods, while many Egyptians complain that salaries are no longer sufficient to cover monthly needs.
The inflation rate in the country is about 15 percent, while official data, prior to the worsening of the economic crisis in 2022, indicated that about a third of Egyptians, or approximately 35 million people, live below the poverty line. Another third of the population lived barely above this line.
Since then, the Egyptian authorities have not published new data on poverty rates. However, the government says that about 66 million people still depend on subsidized bread.
The cost of food subsidies in Egypt amounted to about $3.2 billion in 2025, while the interest on foreign debt alone is expected to exceed $29 billion in 2026.
Inside a grocery store in the Al-Marj neighborhood, shoppers anxiously monitor the prices of their purchases. One of the women caused a delay in the queue in front of the cash register after she had to return some goods, after she discovered that the value of the bill exceeded the amount she could pay.
Women interviewed by Agence France-Presse said that they were eating smaller amounts of food in order to have enough meals for their children.
Some families stopped buying fruits, meat and sweets. Among them is Siham Abdel Qawi, 40, who says: “We live in constant anxiety about whether we will find enough money until the end of the month.”
Previously, Siham Abdel Qawi's family was able to buy meat from time to time. Today, there are only a few vegetables and ice cubes left in her refrigerator. Chicken is served on the family table only twice a month, while the amount of rice prepared each day is carefully measured.
According to United Nations data, about nine million people in Egypt suffered from malnutrition during the past year, while more than 30 percent of the population faced food insecurity.
Siham Abdel Qawi, like Iman Abdel Fattah, was among those excluded from support, after her family chose to enroll their children in a modest private school. But she stresses that this decision does not mean that the family is well-off, but rather it was a sacrifice for the sake of the children’s education, considering that enrolling in a private school alone is not an indicator of the family’s ability to dispense with support.
The case of the two families reflects growing concerns that the exclusion criteria will deprive low-income families of support, at a time when their ability to purchase basic food items has been reduced.
For Iman Abdel Fattah, meat or sweets are no longer the primary concern, but rather providing daily bread for her children.
Egypt is preparing to make a new radical change in the support system starting next January, with the gradual transition from ration cards and in-kind support to direct cash aid.
The government says that the new system will ensure that support reaches those who deserve it and provide citizens with greater freedom in spending. But economists and citizens fear that the cash aid will quickly lose part of its value if prices continue to rise.
