More Stimulus is Needed for the American People
As it almost reaches a year into the pandemic, millions of Americans are faced with one of the most grueling, unfortunate things one can face — food insecurity. By definition, food insecurity is a household’s inability to provide enough food for each person to live a healthy life (Feeding America 2021). The number of families who face food insecurity, specifically (but not limited to) lower income families, has skyrocketed during the pandemic, as people have no source of income due to being laid off from their jobs and struggle to purchase groceries due to the rising food prices across the country. The American people are desperately in need of more stimulus in order for families to be able to participate in the economy: they need money to purchase goods and to have financial security.
The significant amount of job losses across resulted in food insecurity for millions.
The economic fallout due to the pandemic caused 25% of adults to lose their job (Pew Research Center 2020). Just last week, 140,000 people lost their jobs — -all of them were women. The pandemic has put a major strain on women, more specifically mothers. With schools moving to virtual learning in most states, it is an added stressor to have to find the time to make sure their children are safe and doing their work and being properly attended to. The addition of losing their jobs creates a whole different, problematic situation, as they have to look for jobs, which in a pandemic is difficult, as more businesses are struggling to pay their workers and can also be a safety hazard to their families if they exposed to Covid-19. Further, the pressure of trying to find a way to support their family and themselves financially is tough. There has been a steady loss of jobs in the last year as a result of the pandemic. Restaurants, entertainment, and small businesses that depend on foot traffic are the main victims. For example, in Atlanta, Tonita Shumake, who is a cashier at a restaurant is taking home about $100 less than her initial weekly salary as business slowed down tremendously (AJC 2020), and claimed that “this is the first time in a decade (since the Great Recession) that [she] has had to go to a food pantry.” Many others- people with once secure jobs and a steady income, who had never stepped foot in a food bank- also found themselves in line. Many of these people have children and have been scraping up enough money to feed them for months.
No Kid Hungry, a nonprofit which helps solve the issues of hunger and poverty, states that 1 in 4 children in America face hunger due to the coronavirus. Children’s hunger is even more predominant during the pandemic due to schools being closed. Many children received breakfast, lunch and dinner from school when it was in-person. The lack of school meals, along with job losses, has increased the prevalence of child hunger. On the other end of the age spectrum, elderly Americans are sometimes “forced to choose between medicine and food.” In an article by Sharon Cohen on AP News, a recurring theme in each person’s story is “[they] never thought it would be [them]” and that they “felt ashamed.” The big idea is that nobody should have to choose between paying bills and a necessity for survival. People have the right to participate in their economy in order to live a healthy life.
What this means for the economy and what is needed for relief:
Citizen participation is the key for a country’s success, specifically the economy. A theory that can back this claim is the theory of consumerism — in simpler terms, consumerism is the theory in which people consuming products and services creates a higher demand for these goods, driving companies to increase their production (Investopedia 2021). This increase in production allows the economy to grow. But what happens when there is a lack of consumerism?
Usually a lack of consumerism is due to a recession, natural disaster, or a pandemic. There are major downsides to not being able to participate in the economy, some that previous generations have witnessed, during the recession in 2008, or the Great Depression in the 1930’s. The coronavirus pandemic has cut the spending power and ability to pay bills of so many Americans. Citizens are forced to cut back on luxury goods or retail shopping, and instead have to stick only to necessities. To circle back to the food pantry lines, some people might not even have enough money to buy all the necessities they need. This has a cascade effect on the economy which rattles through to a large amount of businesses including retail and mortgage companies. However, there are some ways the government can help boost consumerism.
It starts with stimulus support, in which the government gives consumers checks based on their income. When people receive them, they spend more, which, as said before — boosts the economy. However, Americans have not received an adequate stimulus check since April 2020, which was $1,200. Recently, a debit card with $600 was distributed to Americans early January 2021, though $600 will not be able to cover the damage of the crisis that has unfolded over the past year. For instance, in the June 2020 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average household spends about $644 a month on food, $1,657 a month on housing, and $798 a month on transportation, clearly surpassing the singular stimulus given. On the other side of the coin, President Joe Biden rolled out a 1.9 trillion dollar stimulus plan which includes $1,400 checks and an insurance supplement of $400 a week (New York Times). There is also talk of a minimum wage hike — from $7.25 to $15 per hour; if this occurs, it will “increase pay for tens of millions of workers” (New York Times). Raising the minimum wage would leave more money for citizens to spend however they would like (think back to consumerism — this will boost the economy!)
All in all, the American people are in desperate need of more stimulus in order to ensure participation in the economy through purchases of goods and services, as well as families’ financial security. Travesties of the size of this pandemic need deep economic resuscitation in the form of stimulus in order for the economy to bounce back — and most importantly, if a stimulus is passed, millions of children will not have to worry about when their next meal is.
Source List:
“The Average Household Budget Is Huge In America.” Financial Samurai, 10 June 2020, https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-average-household-budget-is-huge-in-america/
Bauer, Lauren, et al. “Ten Facts about COVID-19 and the U.S. Economy.” Brookings, Brookings, 18 Sept. 2020, www.brookings.edu/research/ten-facts-about-covid-19-and-the-u-s-economy/
Cohen, Sharon. “Millions of Hungry Americans Turn to Food Banks for the 1st Time.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 7 Dec. 2020, www.apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-hunger-coronavirus-pandemic-4c7f1705c6d8ef5bac241e6cc8e331bb.
Kempner, Matt. “Troubling Measurement of Pandemic Economy: Food Pantry Lines.” Ajc, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 30 Dec. 2020, www.ajc.com/ajcjobs/troubling-measurement-of-pandemic-economy-food-pantry-lines/6YSY2RLJLFCFRKYIF6XWCZ2YPM/.
Kim Parker, Rachel Minkin and Jesse Bennett. “Economic Fallout From COVID-19 Continues To Hit Lower-Income Americans the Hardest.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, 30 Oct. 2020, www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/09/24/economic-fallout-from-covid-19-continues-to-hit-lower-income-americans-the-hardest/.
Morello, Paul. “The Food Bank Response to COVID, by the Numbers.” Feeding America, 25 Nov. 2020, www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-blog/food-bank-response-covid-numbers.
“No Kid Hungry Responds CORONAVIRUS.” No Kid Hungry Non Profit, www.nokidhungry.org/coronavirus.
Staff, Investopedia. “Consumerism.” Investopedia, 18 Jan. 2021, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/consumerism.asp.
