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Something extraordinary happened to childhood hunger during the pandemic: It went down to historic lows.
Many experts feared the opposite would happen, as schools closed and the economy spiraled. While hunger did rise in the early days, it began turning around as Congress enacted robust aid packages designed to give kids and families a cushion.
By 2021, food insecurity for households with kids fell to its lowest rate in two decades — 12.5 percent or 4.6 million households — according to the Agriculture Department.
But the special pandemic aid programs that drove this change are now ending — and many U.S. kids could now face a “hunger cliff.”
Expanded food stamp payments are the latest benefit to disappear. February is the last month that low-income families will receive an extra $95 a month or more from the program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in 32 states and Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, the expanded child tax credit expired after Congress declined last year to renew it. In December, Congress funded a whittled-down version of a summer school lunch program, but most other aid programs have been drastically rolled back, even as the United States struggles with high inflation. Rising prices have cut most households’ purchasing power and dramatically raised the prices of some staple foods, including eggs.
Already there are signs that hard-won gains against childhood hunger are starting to erode, calling into question the country’s commitment to addressing the problem.
“It’s incredibly frustrating,” said Lisa Davis, senior vice president of No Kid Hungry, a nonprofit working to end childhood hunger, told me. “We talk a lot about evidence-based policymaking, and during the pandemic, we were able to take policies we’ve been talking about for decades and put them into action,” she said. “The evidence shows that they’re incredibly effective, and to see them go away is really heartbreaking.”
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