Food Insecurity in America

From the Document: "Some Members of Congress have demonstrated an ongoing interest in global food security, including how the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may affect global food security needs in 2020. Some policymakers are examining whether existing U.S. global food security programs are sufficient to meet potentially increased needs. They are also considering what legislative changes, if any, might help address the emerging global food assistance challenges caused by COVID-19."

From the Introduction: "To alleviate the effects of lost daily school meals and to help households with children meet their nutritional needs, Congress authorized a new program: Pandemic EBT [electronic benefits transfer] (P-EBT). This program provides families with a voucher to purchase groceries for an amount equal in value to the school meals missed from the start of school closures to the end of the 2019-20 school year. [...] In this paper we offer a preliminary analysis of the effect of the P-EBT program on food hardship. We leverage variation in the rollout of the P-EBT program across states from April through July to identify the effect of P-EBT on three food hardship measures: (1) food insecurity, (2) whether it was sometimes or often the case that there was not enough food, and (3) very low food security among children. [...] We find that P-EBT had two key impacts among low-income households with school-age children:1 it substantially reduced the share of adults reporting that children in their households did not have enough to eat, especially during the first week after benefits were paid; and it reduced household food insecurity and the likelihood that household members sometimes or often did not have enough to eat."

From the Document: "During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, rising unemployment rates and other factors led an increasing number of Americans to seek food assistance. Food banks, food pantries, and other emergency feeding organizations--sometimes referred to as the 'charitable food assistance network'--are often the first place people go when they become food insecure, and these organizations have experienced an influx in demand during the pandemic. At the same time, they have had to address safety concerns resulting from COVID-19, often operating with fewer staff or utilizing the National Guard to distribute food, and setting up drive-through and mobile food distributions. While the charitable food assistance network relies heavily on private donations, federal programs also provide a significant source of food and revenue for emergency feeding organizations. The primary federal programs that support food banks and other emergency feeding organizations are administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS's) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)."

From the Executive Summary: "The coronavirus pandemic has created a global food security crisis that threatens to eclipse the disease itself. A recent survey by the Brookings Institution revealed unprecedented numbers of children going hungry in the United States. In late April, close to one in five households with young children did not have enough food for their kids, a rate three times higher than at any point during the 2008 recession. One of the government's band-aid solutions was to allot funds to the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to buy food from farmers to give to food banks. This ad hoc measure has proven clumsy and inefficient. Millions of desperate, newly-unemployed people, from Egg Harbor, New Jersey, to Honolulu, Hawaii, wait in miles-long lines to receive food that is often inadequate, low-quality, and unhealthy. The only real solution to rampant food insecurity is a more generous and flexible food assistance program. Democrats reintroduced legislation in April that would expand the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as 'food stamps,' to stave off the hunger awaiting many families. Unlike food banks, SNAP uses existing infrastructures to get food to people quickly and effectively. As an anti-hunger program, SNAP works."

From the Introduction: "The COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic has created a crisis in the U.S. food system, with mounting evidence of widespread food insecurity. Food insecurity refers to disruptions in food access and regular eating because of limited money or other resources. Food insecurity consistently leads to negative health outcomes: For children it has been linked to higher risk for asthma, mental health issues and worse overall health; for adults it is associated with obesity, diabetes, hypertension, depression and poor sleep (Dhurandhar, 2016; Gundersen & Ziliak, 2015). Challenges in accessing sufficient food during the pandemic are likely occurring for a number of reasons. Safe-at-home orders, social distancing, and the closure of businesses, schools and community organizations are critical to arrest the spread of the virus. However, these policies are also making it difficult for some people to get food as they lose jobs and incomes, lose access to school meals, and struggle to acquire food if food outlets are closed or not fully stocked. Other sources of 'informal' food assistance may also be cut off as people lose contact with family and friends, places of worship, or community centers during the pandemic."

From the Introduction: "In this brief, we provide updated analysis of the potential impact of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] on food insecurity in 2020. Households that experience food insecurity lack access to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. Before the COVID-19 crisis began, more than 35 million people, including nearly 11 million children, lived in a food-insecure household. Pre-pandemic data reflect the lowest food insecurity rates had been in more than 20 years, but the current crisis has reversed improvements made over the past decade since the Great Recession."

From the Document: "In May 2020, food insecurity rates remained high but had moderated somewhat since the early weeks of the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic. Efforts to increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and provide school meals and charitable food likely reduced pressure on food budgets for many households. However, not all adults whose families needed assistance with out-of-school meals reported receiving it. Adults with lower incomes, adults whose families have lost work or work-related income during the pandemic, non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic adults, parents living with children under 19, and adults with at least one noncitizen family member continued experiencing higher rates of food insecurity than other adults, further exacerbating social and health disparities across the country."

From the Document: "Prior to COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019], even in the midst of a strong economy with a record streak of job growth and low unemployment rates, in 2018 nearly 8 million (4 percent) American adults reported that members of their households sometimes or often did not have enough to eat. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey (collected April 23, 2020 through July 21, 2020), during COVID-19, that number has surged to 26-29 million, or 11 percent of adults. Who are the hungry in America today? This report provides a description of who didn't have enough to eat."

From the Introduction: "The COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic has significantly impacted the US economy, threatening the financial security of the most vulnerable members of our society. One critical aspect of the financial repercussions of the pandemic is food security, which is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. [...] To address this issue, the federal government authorized temporary changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; previously known as the Food Stamp Program). Most of these changes were authorized by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). Among other things, the FFCRA allowed the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to provide waivers and other flexibilities for states in administering SNAP during the pandemic. This policy brief reviews some of the key changes that help address food security during these unprecedented times."

From the Document: "With millions of workers staying at home to aid public health efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019], the security of America's food supply and its supply chains has rarely been more important. At this moment, to the extent that there is a challenge in ensuring America's grocery stores have enough healthy food on the shelves, it comes not from insufficient natural bounty but instead from the extraordinary burdens that COVID-19 has placed on the many low-wage workers who play such central roles in the functioning of food supply chains."

From the Summary: "This memo looks at what system level changes governors are making to address food and financial insecurity, including support for affected workers, as a result of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019]. This memo is part of an NGA [National Governors' Association] checklist that provides considerations for governors in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from, the spread of the virus. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list, but rather to highlight key steps that states may consider to protect public health and address other consequences, and offer resources to support state actions."

From the Document: "On April 17, 2020, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) would initiate what would be the first round of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP-1), valued at $19 billion, to provide immediate financial relief to farmers, ranchers, and consumers in response to the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] national emergency. [...] This report describes the details of the direct payment component of the CFAP-1 initiative. It describes how this program is funded and administered, including specific details on the calculation and implementation of payments. It includes the program changes made by USDA through a series eight subsequent amendments and corrections to CFAP-1 that expanded program eligibility to additional commodities, updated payment rates, and added clarity to program definitions."