Hunger reaching alarming levels in U.S.
1 in 5Houstonians say they don’t always get enough to eat
It was 5 a.m., not a hint of sun in the sky, as Randy Young and his mom pulled into the line for a free Thanksgiving meal.
They were three hours early. Hundreds of cars and trucks already idled in front of them outside NRG Stadium. This was where Young worked before the pandemic. He was a stadium cook. Now, after losing his job and struggling to get by, he and his 80-year-old mother hoped to get enough food for a holiday meal.
“It’s a lot of people out here,” said Young, 58. “I was just telling my mom, ‘You look at people pulling up in Mercedes and stuff, come on.’ If a person driving a Mercedes is in need of food, you know it’s bad.”
More Americans are going hungry now than at any other point during the pandemic, a Washington Post analysis of federal data found.
The problem has been created by an economic downturn that has tightened its grip on millions of Americans, compounded by government relief programs that expired or will terminate at the end of the year.
Experts say there probably is more hunger in the United States today than at any point since 1998, when the Census Bureau began collecting comparable data about households’ ability to get enough food.
One in eight Americans, or nearly 26 million adults, reported they sometimes or often didn’t have enough food to eat in the past week, according to Census Bureau survey data collected in late October and early November. That number climbed to more than 1 in 6 adults in households with children.
“It’s been driven by the virus and the unpredictable government response,” said Jeremy Everett, executive director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty in Waco.
Nowhere has there been a hunger surge worse than in Houston, with 7 million people.
Houston was pulverized in the summer when the coronavirus overwhelmed hospitals, and the local economy was particularly hard hit by weak oil prices.
More than 1 in 5 adults in Houston reported going hungry recently, including 3 in 10 adults in
households with children.
The growth in hunger rates has hit Hispanic and Black households harder than Anglo ones, a devastating consequence of a weak economy that has left so many people trying to secure food even during dangerous conditions.
On Saturday, these statistics manifested themselves in the thousands of cars waiting in lines outside NRG Stadium.
The people in these cars represented much of the country. Old. Young. Black. Anglo. Asian. Hispanic. Families. Neighbors. People all alone.
Inside a maroon Hyundai Santa Fe was Neicie Chatman, 68, who had been waiting since 6:20 a.m., listening to recordings of a minister’s sermon piped into large earphones.
“I’ve been feeding my spirit,” she said.
Her hours at her job as an administrator have been unsteady since the pandemic began. Her sister was laid off. They both live with their mother.
She planned to take the food to feed her family and share with neighbors.
Now a new wave of coronavirus infections threatens more economic pain.
Yet the hunger crisis seems to have escaped widespread notice in a nation where millions of households have weathered the pandemic relatively untouched.
The stock market fell sharply in March before roaring back and recovering all of its losses. This gave the White House and some lawmakers optimism about the economy’s condition.
Congress left for its Thanksgiving break without making progress on a new pandemic aid deal even as food banks across
the country report a crush of demand heading into the holidays.
“The hardship is incredibly widespread. Large parts of America are saying, ‘I couldn’t afford food for my family,’” said Stacy Dean, who focuses on food-assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “It’s disappointing this hasn’t broken through.”
No place has been spared. In one of the nation’s richest counties, not far from Trump National
Golf Club in Virginia, Loudoun Hunger Relief provided food to a record 887 households in a single week recently. That’s three times the Leesburg, Va.-based group’s pre-pandemic normal.
“We are continuing to see people who have never used our services before,” said Jennifer Montgomery, the group’s executive director.
The Houston area was posting some of its lowest hunger rates before the pandemic, thanks to a booming economy and a strong energy sector, Everett said. Then the pandemic hit.
Hunger surged, concentrated among the city’s sizable lowincome population, in a state that still allows for the federally mandated minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Houston’s hunger rates — like those nationwide — fell significantly after the $1,200 stimulus checks were mailed out in April and other pandemic aid plans took effect, Everett said.
But most of the effects of that aid are gone.
“Without sustained aid at the federal level, we’ll be hardpressed to keep up,” said Celia Call, chief executive of Feeding Texas, which advocates for 21 food banks in the state. “We’re just bracing for the worst.”