Food insecurity grows; advocates looking at solutions

The number of households that don’t have enough food to eat is growing. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture suggesting that more than 10 percent of American households experienced food insecurity in 2019. Since the pandemic started, that number is estimated to have doubled, according to research from Northwestern University. This lack of reliable access to food is even more severe for Black and Latinx households.

Food insecurity — defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle—has been connected to employment, wages, health care costs, disability status and poverty, among other factors. While the country’s network of food banks has been filling in the gap, the coronavirus pandemic has made that increasingly difficult, leading advocates and researchers to increase calls for a more permanent solution.

Jared Call is a senior advocate with California Food Policy Advocates, a nonprofit focused on food policy and increasing access to healthy food for low-income Californians. Craig Gundersen is the Agricultural & Consumer Economics Distinguished Professor in the department of agriculture and consumer economics at the University

of Illinois. He works with Feeding America and concentrates on the causes and consequences of food insecurity, and on the evaluation of food assistance programs, with an emphasis on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

Both men took some time to talk about food insecurity during the pandemic, and how they’d like to see it addressed. (These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. For the full interview, visit sandiegouniontribune.com/ sdut-lisa-deaderick-staff.html.) Q:

Food insecurity has long been an issue, and the pandemic has increased the number of people in the U.S. who can’t afford enough to eat. Can you first talk about what some of the factors are that contribute to food insecurity in the U.S.? And how we’ve seen those factors show up during this pandemic?

Jared Call: Food insecurity is a symptom of poverty. In California, we have the highest rate of poverty of any state according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure. Inequities in access to resources also persist across California due to our legacy of systemic racism and exclusion.

Craig Gundersen: There are a wide number of factors that contribute to food insecurity in the United States. For example, low income, unemployment, food prices in an area; there’s a wide array of different determinants. The one thing that has received a lot more attention, but not nearly as much emphasis as it should, is disability status. Far and away the most important predictor of food insecurity in the United States is whether or not someone in the household has a disability, that’s probably the best predictor of whether a household is food insecure. So, fortunately, a lot more attention has been paid to disability status and food insecurity. So, that’s one of the determinants.

In terms of what’s happening during the pandemic, with respect to some of the other determinants, is the main thing that’s changed in the pandemic is the unemployment rate. In fact, you haven’t seen much movement in the poverty rate, but the unemployment rate has gone up quite a bit. That’s one of the major determinants that has changed during the pandemic.

Q:

What are some of the barriers that individuals and families who experience food insecurity are facing in acquiring food during the pandemic?

Call: The COVID-19 pandemic is making it even more difficult for many Californians to safely access the food they need to live healthy lives. We are hearing about hardships across the state, such as an urgent need for economic relief, including through Pandemic EBT (food benefits for families with children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals through the federal School Breakfast or National School Lunch Programs), more Calfresh (California’s supplemental nutrition assistance program) benefits, and direct payments for households with low income; limited operating hours and closures of meal distribution sites, including schoolbased sites, as well as limited availability of meals at some sites; and the exclusion of many immigrant Californians from existing, newly created, and recently expanded sources of support.

Gundersen: In terms of the narrow issue of acquiring food, I don’t think there have been that many challenges. Food stores haven’t been closing down a lot. If you’re talking about having enough money to acquire food, then yes, this is becoming a much bigger issue for those who have become unemployed. I want to emphasize one thing about this: COVID has had really disproportionate impacts on different segments of the population. For example, for people who are college educated, working in “white collar” jobs, COVID has essentially had almost zero impact if you look at unemployment rates or other measures of economic well-being. Rather, for those in service sector jobs, which tend to pay less, that’s who has borne the brunt of COVID . ... For low-income families, if they work in a restaurant and those restaurants are closed, they’re not getting any money. Or if they’re working on a janitorial staff at an office building that’s been shut down, they’re not making any money. That’s where I think the main concern with

COVID is, that the brunt of these lockdowns is mainly felt by lowincome households.

Q:

Can you talk briefly about how food insecurity and poverty are connected?

Call: Food insecurity stems from a lack of resources. People living on low- and fixed incomes often have trouble meeting their basic needs. When a household needs to allocate scarce resources to pay for the basics like rent, food and medicine, it’s often food that is sacrificed. You can’t “cut back” on rent or life-saving medications, but you can go hungry.

Q:

Do you think that relying on charitable sources (i.e. food banks) is enough to address food insecurity long term? What kind of response would you like to see?

Call: We often say that hunger is not an issue of charity, but an issue of justice. While the emergency food network has gone above and beyond to meet the surging need for food during the pandemic, it will never be able to meet the true level needed as long as poverty and inequities persist.

All people and communities deserve fair access to nutritious, affordable food. State and federal leaders should take bold action to provide the most support to Californians experiencing the greatest need, including individuals living in under-resourced communities harmed by systemic racism.