For this week’s blog, I will mainly be analyzing an article called “Food insecurity in the U.S. didn’t worsen during the pandemic. Here’s why.” by The San Diego Union Tribune published on September 27.
This article describes the findings released in a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), particularly focusing on how the “2020 prevalence of food insecurity in the United States was unchanged from 10.5 percent in 2019” despite “such economic and social turmoil” caused by the pandemic.
The article credits the “extraordinary levels of federal nutrition assistance and aid from hunger relief organizations” for this shocking result. I agree that the work of relief programs is undoubtedly commendable especially as they were able to maintain 89.5 percent of U.S. households remain food secure throughout 2020 – a number unchanged from 2019 – at least according to the report.
However, I have some issues with the way the data compiled by the USDA is being used in this article.
While the article has not misquoted the 10.5 percent statistic from the report, it has completely ignored the other statistics mentioned in the report – particularly stats related to how food insecurity has disproportionately affected households with Black and Hispanic reference persons. Although the article does acknowledge that the pandemic exacerbated already present socio-economic and racial inequalities which lead to food insecurity, it purposefully chooses not to quote any stat here.
The USDA report mentions that while overall, food insecurity unchanged from 10.5 percent of U.S. households in the one year since the outbreak of the pandemic, the rates of food insecurity among certain household types were much higher than the national average. This includes a 21.7 percent for households with Black reference persons and a 17.2 percent for households with Hispanic reference persons.
In addition to race, family type and the number of children were also factors in determining whether the household was food-insecure or not. For example, the rate of food insecurity for all households with children was 14.8 percent while the rates for households with children headed by a single woman and a single man were 27.7 and 16.3 percent respectively.
All these numbers are higher than the 10.5 percent overall percentage so conveniently quoted by this article, but the article won’t tell you that.
Moreover, the report also states that “the prevalence rates of food insecurity varied considerably from State to State. But the article makes no mention of this either.
Conclusively, according to the data compiled by this report, it’s true that the overall percentage of food insecurity has not changed since 2019, particularly due to food relief efforts. However, we do not know yet how this number will change into 2021 especially as relief programs that cushioned the effects of the pandemic have already started expiring. It is also of great concern that food insecurity among certain households is higher than the average.
Whether this is because the pandemic and the resulting unemployment disproportionately affected Black and Hispanic households and/ or because food relief efforts were disproportionate among the population is up to debate and further analysis. However, one thing which is clear is that media sources will purposefully hide certain stats while emphasizing on others to push for certain propaganda.
Sources:
Shea, D. (2021). Food insecurity in the U.S. didn’t worsen during the pandemic. Here’s why. The san Diego Union-Tribune. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/story/2021-09-27/food-insecurity-united-states-snap