{"id":43501,"date":"2023-09-27T12:32:27","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T19:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cafoodbanks.org\/?p=43501"},"modified":"2023-10-11T10:36:52","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T17:36:52","slug":"safety-net-cuts-in-the-midst-of-high-poverty-worsen-hunger-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cafoodbanks.org\/es\/blog\/safety-net-cuts-in-the-midst-of-high-poverty-worsen-hunger-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Los recortes a la red de seguridad en medio de una alta pobreza agravan la crisis del hambre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, the U.S. Census Bureau released data<\/a> showing record-high jumps in poverty between 2021 and 2022. Poverty in the U.S. increased across all age categories, household types, and racial and ethnic groups measured. Especially concerning are the findings that disparities by race and ethnicity dramatically widened \u2014 erasing substantial gains that had been made since the pandemic \u2014 and that poverty rates among children more than doubled. Experts attribute much of the backsliding to the expiration of pandemic-era economic supports, such as the Child Tax Credit expansion<\/a> and other safety net programs that ended in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Child Supplemental Poverty Rates by Race and Hispanic Origin: 2009 to 2022<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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Poverty and low incomes are the main drivers of  food insecurity<\/a> \u2014 the condition of having insufficient or uncertain access to enough food to live a healthy life. Indeed, food banks around the country, including many of our members in California, reported a steady surge in the need for food assistance in 2022, coinciding with the timeframe of the Census data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against this backdrop of economic hardship, 2023 has brought even more setbacks to ending hunger in California, with the termination of CalFresh Emergency Allotments in March and a substantial cut in Pandemic-EBT over the summer. These two benefits together represented one-third of the state\u2019s food assistance<\/a> safety net when they were in place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Multiple data sources illustrate that the need for food assistance in California has intensified over the past year: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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California food insecurity is at pandemic-era levels<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Analyses by Northwestern Institute for Policy Studies<\/a> of the ongoing Census Household Pulse Survey<\/a> estimate that, in August 2023, 22% of California households overall and 28% of households with children were food insecure. These rates are comparable to those of 2020, during the early stages of the pandemic, and higher than in 2021 when there had been a brief downward trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Food Insecurity in California on the Rise Again<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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Food insecurity rates calculated by Northwestern Institute for Policy Studies using data from the US Census Household Pulse Survey, for all respondents and households with children.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Low-income families with children are distressed<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Our partners at Propel<\/a>, the creators of the Providers app, surveyed CalFresh \/ SNAP users<\/a> to understand the impact of cuts in Pandemic-EBT benefits among families by comparing responses from August 2023 \u2014 after the decrease \u2014 to those of August 2022. Data specific to California show that: <\/p>\n\n\n\n