Lessons Learned from the Lack of Increase in Food Insecurity during COVID-19

In 2011, 50.1 million Americans were food insecure. By 2019, this number had fallen by 30% to 35.2 million [1]. This remarkable decline was because of many factors but primarily because of strong economic growth and increased participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Although these numbers remained unacceptably high, this decline was welcome news.

There was a concern that COVID-19 would at least temporarily erode this decline in food insecurity. One study predicted, based on anticipated increases in unemployment and poverty, that the number of food-insecure persons would rise to 54 million [2]. Fortunately, these predictions were wrong and, instead, the official measures showed a slight increase in 2020 (to 38.3 million), but the 2021 numbers were even lower than 2019 (33.8 million) [1].

In this issue of the Journal of Nutrition, Pepetone et al. [3] make an important contribution to the connection between COVID-19 and food insecurity in “Prevalence and severity of food insecurity before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among adults and youth in Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States.” They find that, in the main, food insecurity rates did not increase in these countries and, in fact, fell in Canada and Australia. It was only in Mexico that there was an increase, and, even there, the increase was small. Their results are consistent with what has been found in the United States when other data sets are used. Before turning to why at least the United States did not see increases, as an aside, the authors should be praised for their use of a survey across multiple middle- and high-income countries. This type of cross-country comparison, especially among higher-income countries, is not common; my hope is that the authors and others will use these data for further cross-country comparisons.

Why there wasn’t an increase in food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The question then becomes, why wasn’t there an increase in food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic? Here I concentrate on the United States in the interests of space, but at least some of these reasons are likely to hold in the other countries covered in this article. The reasons are 4-fold.

First, there were multiple direct cash payments to individuals by the US government. These included the so-called “stimulus checks” and expanded unemployment benefits. Although these efforts were perhaps poorly targeted with respect to reaching those in danger of food insecurity (e.g., many stimulus check recipients were at little risk of being food insecure), the role played by these payments is to be expected given the inverse relationship between income and food insecurity [1].

Second, the charitable food assistance sector dramatically increased the amount of food being distributed. This sector is always important to addressing food insecurity in the United States [4,5], but perhaps never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during the earliest days of the pandemic. This can be seen in the dramatic increase in food distributed by the Feeding America network of food banks—from 5.2 billion pounds in 2019 to 7.4 billion pounds in 2020 and 6.7 billion pounds in 2021 [6].

Third, SNAP benefits were substantially increased—all recipients were bumped up to the maximum and, later, the maximum was raised—and the application process was simplified, ensuring more people could enter the program quickly [7]. The importance of SNAP in reducing food insecurity at all times has been well documented [[8], [9], [10]], and this was demonstrated again during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the prominence and success of SNAP, there are efforts by some to undermine the dignity and autonomy of recipients by, for example, imposing restrictions on what people can purchase. These efforts would lead to increases in food insecurity [11]. If these restrictions were to be put into place, there would be increases in food insecurity at all times, especially during times of crises like in 2020. In other words, to adhere to the call of Pepetone et al. [3] in the final sentence of their abstract, “Actions are needed to support households at risk of food insecurity,” we must resist these unfortunate calls to impose restrictions on the purchases of vulnerable SNAP recipients.

Fourth, agricultural supply chains were remarkably resilient despite a global pandemic. Because these already efficient supply chains were not disrupted, food price inflation did not occur. For example, in 2019, food prices rose by 3.5% and in 2020 they rose by the same amount [12]. Food prices are one of the key determinants of food insecurity [13,14]. As such, when environmental regulations are considered that will lead to higher food prices, one must consider these impacts on the most vulnerable among us; a similar story holds for when increases on taxes of individual food items are proposed. This is not to say these regulations and taxes should not be pursued, only that the food insecurity consequences need to be considered.

Households left behind

Households with at least 1 person with a mental and/or physical disability are at higher risk of food insecurity than other groups in the United States, especially after controlling for relevant covariates [[15], [16], [17]]. In 2021, for example, individuals in households with at least 1 person with a disability had food insecurity rates that were 128% higher than that of individuals in households without anyone with a disability. Even more discouraging is what happened from 2011 to 2019. Over this time period, individuals in a household without anyone with a disability saw a 43.1% decline in food insecurity rates, whereas individuals in a household with someone with a disability saw a 17.8% decline. After limiting the sample to those with incomes under 200% of the poverty line, the story is even more stark—32.0% compared with 7.1%.

As covered above, through economic growth, SNAP, the charitable food sector, and a vibrant agricultural supply chain, food insecurity rates are declining in the United States, and this was not disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic. These same factors also benefit households with someone with a disability, but there needs to be additional support in this context. There are some promising developments—for example, online shopping with SNAP benefits is being made more available and affordable [18]—but much more work in this area is needed. Research into the causes of food insecurity among households with disabilities is remarkably sparse, and by building up this research, creative ideas are sure to emerge about how to enable reductions in food insecurity among those with disabilities akin to those without disabilities. These insights will benefit persons with disabilities in the United States along with those in the other countries studied in Pepetone et al. [3].

Author Contributions

The sole author was responsible for all aspects of this manuscript.

Funding

The author reported no funding received for this study.

Author disclosures

The author reports no conflicts of interest.