Giving thanks, giving more for ‘food insecurity’

 

Bill Knight column for 11-23, 24 or 25, 2020

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks, but at this time it’s maybe a time to give, period.

As people say grace over holiday meals, some may think of others struggling during the pandemic and the economic challenges that resulted from precautions against infections. More of us all ought to realize that includes difficulties in putting food on the table.

Nationwide, such a challenge for families – “food insecurity” it’s called – is at an all-time high. The Census’ most recent “Household Pulse Survey” shows that 18.2 million U.S. households “sometimes” have difficulty accessing food, and another 5.5 million households “often” do.

Those numbers from the last week of October are, respectively, 7.3% and 2.2% of the nation’s 249,170,916 households.

“More than 50 million Americans are food insecure this year, including about 17 million children,” says Craig Gundersen, professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Health & Human Services’ Planning & Evaluation division last month estimated 9.8 million more people will fall below the federal poverty line in coming weeks as unemployment benefits expire without further relief from Congress.

Meanwhile, the possibility of another pandemic relief package passing the Senate and signed by Trump before Dec. 31 is increasingly unlikely. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is adjourning the Senate this week, and President Trump continues to focus on overturning the election results (although shortly before the election, the Trump administration was active in a related matter: going to court to block emergency food assistance for the county’s poorest families).

McConnell has said Republicans want a limited, “highly targeted” relief package similar to a $500 billion proposal that Democrats rejected months ago as insufficient for the nation’s needs.

Of course, food insecurity is made more difficult as well as more prevalent in a pandemic.

“One of the key things about COVID-19 is how there’s differential impacts across the country and by demographic groups,” Gundersen said. “People with college education generally have not seen much of an impact on either unemployment rates or incomes. However, people in lower-wage jobs tend to be impacted a lot more.

“We would expect greater impact of COVID-19 in areas with a high concentration of service industry jobs,” he added.

For instance, in recent months Nevada went from 20th to 8th highest food insecurity rate by state, he said.

“Areas like Nevada, which has a strong emphasis on the service industry and tourism, will have substantially higher rates of increase in food insecurity than areas with fewer service sector workers,” Gundersen said.

Illinois is about in the middle of the states, but it needs hundreds of millions of dollars to meet its food needs, according to a study, “Map the Meal Gap,” from Feeding America, the nonprofit network of hundreds of U.S. food pantries. Also, a sampling of its data for eight downstate counties in Illinois show five of them have higher rates of food insecurity than the state overall (10.1%).

Percentages of food insecurity in Fulton County is 12.5%; Henderson 9.6%; Henry 9.7%; Knox 13.1%; Livingston 11.2%; McDonough 12.3%; Peoria 12.0%; and Warren 9.7%.

“We have to recognize that during the pandemic situation there are areas of the country which may need more emergency assistance in the near term,” Gundersen said. “Furthermore, some of these jobs may not come back, so these impacts could also have longer-term ramifications.

“Resources should continue to be directed toward those areas with greater needs before, during and after COVID-19,” he added.

In Illinois, many food pantries try to meet neighbors’ needs, with assistance from the Midwest Food Bank, churches, charities and generous individuals and organizations.

So, again, millions of adults and kids — almost 1 in 10 U.S. households – occasionally or often don’t have enough to eat (compared to just 3.7% of households in 2019, incidentally).

This Thanksgiving – especially during this pandemic and its dire economic consequences – people are encouraged to give thanks and maybe give some nonperishable food, a little time or a bit of money to nearby food banks or the local food pantries working hard to serve the less-fortunate in our communities.