HUNGER STALKS POOR AMERICANS AS PANDEMIC RELIEF DRIES UP

Thu 23 December 2021:

As winter holidays approach, many Americans won’t just miss out on celebratory meals because of isolation forced on them by the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead millions of people in the US will go literally hungry due to the deep economic crisis gripping the country.

According to Bloomberg, hunger is on the rise this holiday season, with the US Census Bureau estimating that more than 21 million Americans were hungry in early December.

Low-income families may soon face more pressure as pandemic relief payments run out and grocery prices rise, with monthly child tax credit payments ending and the Senate deadlocked on legislation to extend the program backed by President Joe Biden.

The number of households in which there was sometimes or often not enough to eat reached 9.7% this month, a five month high, according to data collected between December 1 and 13 by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. That figure in households with children sunk from 11% to 7.8% in August, after the first child tax credit monthly payments went out.

In the United States, grocery prices are up 6.4 percent from a year ago. Food banks are also seeing increased demand, and clinics that help malnourished and underfed children are seeing more patients.

Two-parent households making less than $150,000 per year receive an advance on their tax return through the child tax credit payments. Each child under the age of six receives $300 per month, and each child under the age of eighteen receives $250 per month. Households with a higher income receive a smaller credit. According to Census Bureau surveys conducted between July and September, the majority of parents reported using the mid-month cash infusions for food. Making the payments permanent, according to studies, could significantly reduce childhood poverty.

On Dec. 15, the last of the scheduled payments for the expanded child tax credit were mailed. Payments would be extended through 2022 under the Build Back Better Act. Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, said on Sunday that he would not vote for the bill, so its fate is uncertain.

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