A survey released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found higher levels of food insecurity this year than during the summer of 2020, when the coronavirus outbreak sparked double-digit unemployment.
The New York Fed periodically asks Americans whether they’re having to skip meals, having to rely on food donations or receiving federal assistance to buy groceries. Replies from the most recent survey, in February, show hunger is a more pervasive problem now than at any time in the last six years.
I don’t think we have spent enough time considering how groundbreaking the COVID response was.
Suddenly, there was a safety net. All COVID-related medical expenses were covered by the government, testing was free. When vaccines came out, they also were free and distributed with an equivalency-focused, needs-based attitude.
It was like the catastrophe showed what life can be like, what a huge benefit free healthcare is, and how much being able to rely on stabilization helps out everybody.
Then came 2022 and it was literally all over. Suddenly, you have to pay for everything, and the poorest feel the pain of hunger again. For literally no good reason, as there is plenty money sloshing around.
Could not agree more, we had an absolutely revolutionary moment where we could have locked a bunch of that stuff in place and started building an economy that actually works for people, but Biden and moderate Dems were all “We need to go back to ‘normal’! ‘Normal’ polls good!” because they have no fucking idea how politics works and spend time chasing trends instead of making them, and now we have no safety net and no Democratic president.