As prices rise, so does food insecurity in US.
Rising prices are causing a new strain on families, some of whom have never before needed help like this.
“Most of them are a little bit desperate because they’re having to pay regular bills,” Richardson said. “If there’s a medical emergency, they’re having to deal with medications and those things, and so they don’t have extra funds for groceries.”
Courtney Allen is a wife and mom of two who had to visit the Mansfield Food Bank for the first time to provide meals for her family.
“It was never a problem before inflation hit,” she said. “You’re at the end of the week. and you’re, like, ‘OK, there’s less food in here than there was a couple of weeks ago.’”
Bidenflation Cost Households $10k
Inflation is over, the administration crows, even as Congress works to pass another massive spending bill — this time, $1.7 trillion.
But struggling families know not to pop the cork yet.
The consumer price index rose just 0.1% last month, bringing the 12-month rate to 7.1% — still higher than any year since the disco days of 1981. Politicians have downplayed inflation ever since President Biden ignored economist warnings in early 2021 that it would be economic malpractice to throw a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill at a supply-constrained economy. Then we were told that inflation was “transitory,” a relic of corporate price gouging and “Putin’s price hike.”
The Federal Reserve has also downplayed inflation. Two years ago, its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) forecast that inflation (using a slightly different measure called the PCE, for Personal Consumption Expenditures) would be 1.8% in 2021. It instead came in at 5.8%. Not learning its lesson, the FOMC projected that inflation in 2022 would fall to 2.6%. It is now set to end the year at 5.6%. So here we are again, with the FOMC projecting inflation rates of 3.1%, 2.5%, and 2.1% over the next three years.