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A THREAD on children + food insecurity during the pandemic since this is getting totally lost in the massive amount of Covid-19 news and noise. Here's a new chart from @hamiltonproj kick off:
The chart above is based on recent @uscensusbureau data showing 1/6 households w/kids reporting children were not eating enough sometimes or often in June.
Let that sink in.
Let that sink in.
This is new govt data that show food insecurity has gone up dramatically for children, confirming earlier surveys that have found similar trends during the pandemic.
We have this new data because the Census Bureau recently added a Q to its weekly surveys during Covid - to learn how often children in surveyed households “were not eating enough because we just couldn’t afford enough food.”
The question is important because it drills down into how children are being directly affected. While overall household food insecurity is also an important measure - and those rates are much higher! - adults often shield children from missing meals when they can.
The rates of children not getting enough food are much higher than anything that's been recorded since the government began tracking food insecurity.
The racial disparities are clear. Overall more than 16% reporting children did not get enough to eat sometimes or often (5X what it was in 2018).
Black households: 29%
Hispanic households: 24%
white households: 9%
I previewed these findings here: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/06/racial-disparities-families-struggle-food-348810
Black households: 29%
Hispanic households: 24%
white households: 9%
I previewed these findings here: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/06/racial-disparities-families-struggle-food-348810
You can find more on the @hamiltonproj report here:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/09/food-insecurity-children-355425
Here's the report by @laurenlbauer: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/07/09/about-14-million-children-in-the-us-are-not-getting-enough-to-eat/?preview_id=906357
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/09/food-insecurity-children-355425
Here's the report by @laurenlbauer: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/07/09/about-14-million-children-in-the-us-are-not-getting-enough-to-eat/?preview_id=906357
These stark disparities track similarly if you zoom out and look at household-level food insecurity. This new chart from @dwschanz at @NorthwesternU shows weekly rates since April.
If you want to really wonk out, you can see how @uscensusbureau survey data is translated into food insecurity data by @IPRatNU here: https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/documents/reports/ipr-rapid-research-reports-pulse-hh-data-1-june-2020.pdf
