Food insecure population grows for fifth straight month
Speaking Security Newsletter | Note n°214 | 19 August 2023
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On Wednesday, I was interviewed by The Hill about a piece I wrote for The Lever called “Bidenomics isn’t working for working people.”
In the article, I try to make sense of the disconnect between the US’s impressive economic growth and the public’s dismal view of the economy. What I told The Hill was that this disconnect presents a major problem for Democrats, who put economic recovery at the forefront of their election messaging. They’ve certainly got the right to brag about high GDP, low unemployment, and generally-improving inflation numbers. But these numbers don’t reflect the conditions of day-to-day economic life. And those conditions are demonstrably poor. While Republicans don’t have a credible plan to fix things like food or financial insecurity, they’ve still managed to outdo Democrats, who seem to have unanimously agreed to not mention this problem at all. By insisting everything’s fine when it isn’t, Democrats risk coming off as the most annoying people on the planet to millions of voters who wouldn’t otherwise think so.
Anyway, I said in my new article that the food insecure population in the US has increased for four straight months. Now it’s five months, according to even-newer data:
^Alt text for screen readers: Food insecurity tops previous Biden era-high. This line graph shows the food insecure population under Biden. After a sharp drop in 2021, food insecurity began rising again in 2022 and gradually leveled off. But it has increased every month since March 2023 and is now at 27.3 million adults. Data as of August 2023 via the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. Figures refer to U.S. adults without enough to eat in the last 7 days. More at stephensemler.substack.com. Chart and analysis by Stephen Semler (@stephensemler).
-Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)
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