Food Insecurity Reaches Near-Pandemic Levels
While headline economic indicators continue to suggest stability in the U.S. economy, a growing body of evidence points to a different reality for millions of Americans struggling to afford basic necessities. New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has found that food insecurity is increasing sharply across the country, reaching levels not seen since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and exposing deep economic divides that aggregate statistics often fail to capture.
The analysis, released this week by researchers at the New York Fed, examined responses from the Survey of Consumer Expectations and found what researchers described as “a remarkable increase in food insecurity, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income households and households with young children,” alongside “a contemporaneous increase in pessimism among the same groups, along with a sharp decline in job-finding expectations.”