September 23, 2024
“Are you telling me this formula’s been broken for years, and the other guys haven’t fixed it?” asked campaign manager Bruno Gianelli to White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler in a scene from the TV show, “The West Wing,” as Toby tries to figure out what to do regarding a new way of calculating the poverty level. Toby is anxious over this issue because the change would increase the amount of people living in poverty during a Presidential election year. Bruno, as the president’s campaign manager for his re-election, takes care of his issue by looking at the problem as a solution.
The latest U.S. Census Bureau and food security reports reminded me of this scene. The reports showed that, in 2023, 42.8 million people lived in poverty and 47.4 million lived in households struggling with food insecurity. With an increase of households impacted by food insecurity and significant levels of poverty continuing in the wealthiest, most powerful nation in world history, we have a problem we should all be anxious about.
How is it that, in the land of plenty, all that these reports show is that we have plenty of poverty and hunger?
This is why the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) is working on solutions to strengthen federal programs to end poverty-related hunger in America.
Federal Programs Make America Stronger
To combat hunger and poverty, Congress needs to make permanent an expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC). With 13.8 million children living in households that experience food insecurity (an increase of 0.7 percent from 2022), Congress should be expanding the CTC to at least match the successful program that both cut child poverty in half during the pandemic and improved food security.
When the expanded CTC ended in 2022, poverty and food insecurity skyrocketed. Clearly, the ripple effect of the end of the expansion continued through 2023, with the increase in both supplemental poverty and hunger rates, which was further exacerbated by inflation.
Other federal programs played an important role in alleviating poverty in 2023:
– Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) lifted 3.4 million people;
– school meals lifted 1.2 million people;
– the CTC lifted 2.4 million people, and
– special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) lifted 203,000 people out of poverty.
This is important to note because it shows that these programs are working, and if we only turn the needle up on these programs, then we can make progress in the war on poverty, and hunger, like never before. To fully leverage these programs in the fight to end poverty, Congress must:
- increase SNAP benefits,
- prioritize fully funding WIC,
- expand the CTC, and
- reinstate Healthy School Meals for All students.
Doing so will help stretch families’ household budgets and serve all those eligible.
Hungry People Can’t Wait
Instead of strengthening SNAP during this time of increased food insecurity, several lawmakers want to cut SNAP benefits by $30 billion over the next decade. While it becomes increasingly expensive to raise children in America, with far too many children going hungry, the House and Senate have not made an agreement to put through a CTC, or to reinstate Healthy School Meals for All students to benefit children in these precarious times. How can we justify such decisions when the need is greater than ever?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Security report revealed that 86.5 percent of households were food secure, a decrease from 87.2 percent in 2022. If this was a test score at school, it would barely be a B+. Just as concerning, only 82.1 percent of U.S. households with children under 18 were food secure. That’s a B-. We should not be bringing these declining grades home with any semblance of pride.
Even worse, 1 percent of households with children — that’s 374,000 households — are in such dire straits that children are going hungry, skipping a meal, or not eating for an entire day. Congress has the power to end this, so the question arises: Why do they let it continue? After all, you cannot lead America if you cannot feed America.
Households with income below the poverty line spent 8 percent less than the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP). The TFP is a formula that uses various factors to calculate the bare minimum cost to have a nutritious diet. This means that when a household’s spending falls below the TFP, their food insecurity increases. But, that concern is not bad enough because it gets worse. Food insecurity not only impacts our present, it impacts our future because studies show that people with very low food security live 4.5 years less than those with full food security.
This inaction is literally killing us.
The Poverty Trap
Poverty must be eradicated at the root to ensure that all people in the U.S. can access what they need to thrive. In an age where gender-pay inequities and child care costs affect millions of households, we saw a sharp contrast in poverty rates with 23.6 percent of single mom households living in poverty while 12.4 percent of single dad households lived in poverty. Additionally, food insecurity was similarly disproportionate between single mom households (34.7 percent) and single dad households (22.6 percent). With single mothers disproportionately impacted by poverty, what does this say about the systemic inequities they face?
With a study finding that 78 percent of people across America live paycheck to paycheck, most of us are one emergency away from living in poverty. The latest Census report also shows a uniquely American problem: 7.4 million people fell into poverty due to medical expenses. Meanwhile, despite misinformation that alleges people with low incomes do not work, we saw 4 million people fall into poverty due to work expenses, the weekly median expense being $39.30.
It is, of course, no surprise in a country where many policies are rooted in racism that food insecurity was higher for Black (23.3 percent) and Latinx (21.9 percent) households, both more than double the rate of White non-Latinx households (9.9 percent). Black and Latinx households also had the lowest median incomes, $52,860 and $62,800 respectively, compared to Asians ($108,700) and Whites ($81,060). There is an entire landscape for improvement so that these communities have less poverty and more food security.
However, with the U.S. Supreme Court reversing affirmative action in 2023, we may see income reach a peak, stagnate, and begin to decline within Black and Latinx households over the next two decades should this decision decrease diversity within colleges and ultimately force these communities into low-paying jobs, further exacerbating food insecurity and poverty.
Poverty and food insecurity are multifaceted, deeply rooted issues in our society. The good news is that because they are policy choices, they are solvable. Investing more in SNAP and the Child Tax Credit is not a badge of shame on a government, because doing so is how we will decrease food insecurity and poverty. After all, the formula has been broken for years, and advocates are the people who can help fix it.
