USA TODAY International Edition
Inflation blame game doesn’t help those now relying on food pantries
CHICAGO – Chadana Myatt feels the bite of inflation more acutely than some who read the headlines and see rising prices as an abstraction.
For Myatt and millions of other Americans living on budgets with zero wiggle room, inflation is painfully real.
She’s a single mother of two, a 13year- old daughter and a 10- year- old son. When she had a job as a systems engineer for a railway company, they walked the line between getting by, sometimes turning to a food pantry for help.
“At the end of the day, we were comfortable and we were really blessed, but if I got one bill increase, I had to make some decisions,” Myatt said. “Just making sure my kids never went hungry.”
She lost her job in March 2021 – pandemic- related downsizing – and is still looking for work. In the meantime, rising food prices have made the task of putting food on the table each day measurably harder, and the occasional food pantry trips that provided bridges over tight stretches are now part of her regular routine.
‘ Sabotaging’ poverty assistance
“I’ve actually been on the phone negotiating with different services that I have, like the internet and the gas company,” Myatt said. “I’m looking at my options. I have to cut costs all across the board. Everything has gone up, but when I talk to people who say, ‘ Well it’s only $ 10 more a month or $ 20 a month,’ and I’m like, ‘ I don’t have that.’ ”
That’s the reality many of us miss. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released last week, grocery prices have jumped 10% over the past year. For some, that’s a frustration and a grumble in the checkout line. For families like Myatt’s, it’s a wall they can’t climb over.
Along with the news of inflation rates hitting a 40- year high, food pantries across the country are seeing demand swell, exacerbated not just by inflation but also by the recent expiration of the child- tax credit and the unwillingness of lawmakers to take serious steps to address poverty.
“We’re seeing the smoke and we think there’s probably fire,” said Kate Maehr, executive director of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which supplies hundreds of food pantries, including the one Myatt relies on. “I’ve got a bucket of water and a hose and somebody just cut the hose and my bucket has a huge hole in it and it’s been put there intentionally. They are deliberately sabotaging the tools. They are deliberately saying, ‘ Nope, don’t put out the fire. Let it roar.’ ”
( I previously ran an annual holiday food drive in which readers donated to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.)
The expanded child- tax credit that began during the pandemic was allowed to expire at the end of December, and the impact was immediate. In December, that credit was keeping 3.7 million children out of poverty. In January, 3.7 million additional children were living in poverty, according to Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy.
“People used that money in a thousand different ways to stabilize their lives,” Maehr said. “And now they don’t have it. So they’re back to having to make trade- off decisions. There’s ample evidence that this is a strategy that can lift families out of poverty in a very direct way. I feel like Congress’ inaction is a very strong statement. Clearly children, the next generation of Americans, aren’t a priority. They’re willing to let families with children go hungry. It’s morally reprehensible.”
The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is one of the most effective ways to protect people from food insecurity. The money is spent at grocery stores, so it’s feeding people and finding its way directly back into local economies. But again, with inflation, current SNAP benefits aren’t going nearly as far, and there’s no indication Congress plans to provide relief to families by boosting those benefits.
Other programs used to curb food insecurity during the early part of the pandemic – like child- nutrition waivers that gave school meal programs greater flexibility – are set to expire soon.
Pointing fingers helps no one
When it comes to inflation, lawmakers and pundits are busy casting and deflecting blame.
It’s a luxury to have time to waste pointing fingers. We’re slowly coming out of an unprecedented pandemic that turned the global economy on its ear. People around the world are dealing with inflation, not just Americans. There’s no single villain here.
In our country, we should control what we can control, and straightforward measures like the child- tax credit, SNAP benefits and enhanced school meal programs are a way to do that and help bring stability to people like Myatt and her family.
The pantry Myatt frequents is called the Free- N- Deed Market. The name was inspired by a biblical quote: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
The pantry’s founder, Nicole Scott, told the Greater Chicago Food Depository: “That’s really what I want to be able to do, is liberate people from food insecurity.”
It’s a mission we should all want to join, an infinitely better use of time than pointing fingers.