According to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture report, in 2022, the United States experienced more than a 30% spike in food insecurity among Americans and a 44% increase among children. That breakdown means 30.8 million adults and 13.4 million children weren’t always sure they would have food on the table. These percentages don’t technically include the “11.7 million adults (4.6 percent of adults)” that “lived in households with very low food security, and 783,000 children (1.1 percent of children) [that] lived in households with very low food security among children.” This is the highest spike since the dark days of the 2008 financial crisis.
Almost 1 in 5 American households with children were food insecure in 2022. On top of this, pandemic-era programs have been coming to an end, and states with Democratic representation willing to use that federal money to help fund food programs that benefit children will run out of those funds. According to experts, as bad as this news is, it could still have been worse (and will get worse) if the more expansive SNAP benefits pushed for by Democrats weren’t in place. Produce Blue Book spoke with Kyle Waide, who is the president and CEO of Atlanta Community Food Bank:
SNAP is proven to help alleviate food insecurity and it is imperative that these vital programs continue. We are advocating that Congress not only protect SNAP but also increase funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) which helps food banks like ours meet the increasing need in our communities.
Tom Vilsack, U.S. secretary of agriculture, released a statement along with the report calling it “a wake-up call to those wanting to further roll back our anti-poverty and anti-hunger programs,” adding, “No child should go hungry in America. The report is a stark reminder of the consequences of shrinking our proven safety net.” He emphasized the need to push forward on the Biden administration’s call for testing social safety net programs as well as public health and nutrition research.
The cause is well understood to be the end of the child tax credit and rising food costs. The pandemic-era tax credit helped bring child poverty down by 46% percent in 2021, and gave families and parents peace of mind. Even with Democrats willing to make garbage compromises with conservatives, the child tax credit was allowed to sunset at the end of 2021. The massively successful program came to an end when one of the most corrupt politicians in our lifetime, Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin, joined every single Republican senator in letting the tax credit lapse.
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