Thread by @WhiteHouseCEA

To promote a robust economic recovery, the Federal government has been helping needy families through a combination of Federal income support programs, including economic impact payments (stimulus checks) and supplemental unemployment insurance benefits. 1/

A new CEA blog shows that after the extra Federal aid was issued, there were marked improvements in food security among households that reported experiencing financial hardship since COVID-19 began and that were reliant on such funds to meet their recent spending needs. 2/

Although hunger is now on the rise as Federal relief has subsided, additional aid is imminent through the expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), which policymakers expect will once again help to reduce food insecurity. 3/

For households that experienced a loss of employment income since March 2020 and relied on stimulus checks in the past week to meet their spending needs, food insufficiency rates dropped from 27 percent in mid-December 2020 to 18 percent in mid-January 2020. 4/

For households that experienced a loss of employment income since COVID-19 began and relied on unemployment insurance benefits in the past week to meet their spending needs, food insufficiency rates dropped from 26 percent in mid-December 2020 to 19 percent in mid-January 2020.5/

The latest Household Pulse Survey data from the May 26 to June 7, 2021 period indicate that a significant share of the U.S. population is still currently not eating enough. 6/

Among households with children, over 1 in 10 households (13 percent) and over 2 in 10 households with annual incomes below $50K (23 percent) said that they sometimes or often did not have enough food to eat in the household over the past week. 7/

While there have been substantial gains in America’s fight against the pandemic-induced hunger crisis, more is required to further reduce food deprivation as the U.S. economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic shock, particularly among lower-income households with children. 8/

The full blog is here: whitehouse.gov/cea/blog/2021/…