An increasing share of American adults are going hungry
The big picture: It's a shocking data point for the wealthiest country in the world, and comes at a time when the stock market is hitting record highs and President Trump just signed a bill slashing food benefits.
The rise is like a slow-moving train wreck, says John Leer, chief economist at Morning Consult. "There's such a disconnect now between record highs on Wall Street and elevated levels of food insecurity."
Zoom in: The share of adults who tell Morning Consult in monthly surveys that they sometimes or often don't have enough to eat — or are food insecure — has been creeping up over the past several years.
In May, 15.6% of adults were food insecure, almost double the rate in 2021. At that time Congress had beefed up SNAP benefits and expanded the Child Tax Credit driving down poverty rates, and giving people more money for food.
Zoom out: The rate appears higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Morning Consult's data only goes back to 2021. However, federal data that measures food insecurity, and roughly lines up with Morning Consult's findings, shows the numbers were already above pro-COVID levels back in 2023.
Demand for food is up 120% from three years ago at the Philadelphia-area food bank network where George Matysik is executive director.
As soon as the government support pulled back in 2022, "we started to see the numbers go up," says Matysik, who is with the Share Food Network, which serves hundreds of thousands of people.
Demand just continued to rise from there, along with grocery prices.
Between the lines: Congress just passed a huge cut to food benefits, or SNAP, that is likely to make the situation far worse, says Matycik.
The "big, beautiful bill" pushes states to provide more funding for SNAP, and tightens work requirements for benefits.
Before, adults over age 54 weren't required to work; now the age limit is 64. And fewer parents are exempted from working, as well.
It's expected that millions will lose benefits, and more would receive less.
People will have less money for food, further driving folks to food banks, which had already been dealing with different spending cuts from the White House.
Reality check: Some of the cuts to SNAP, involving state funding, don't take effect until 2028 — raising the possibility that they might not happen.
The data also looks a bit volatile, bouncing around quite a bit — it spiked at the end of 2024, and it's not clear why.
It is likely a reflection of how precarious it is to make ends meet for folks at the lower end of the wage scale — some are in hourly jobs with fluctuating schedules, which can be rough on one's personal finances.
The other side: The White House and congressional Republicans argue that cuts to these benefits are a way to push more people into the labor market and reduce dependence on government assistance, as well as an effort to reduce waste, fraud and abuse.
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Los Angeles Times
28 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
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Forbes
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- Forbes
Monetary Innovation And The Blockchain Can Solve Our Debt Crisis
You actually had to have this stuff in reserve to be a "national bank" in the United States. A ... More one-hundred dollar Civil War government bond is dated August 19, 1861. What is our debt crisis again? The federal government has $38 trillion in its own debt securities outstanding. Is that it, is that the crisis? Yes and no. It is not necessarily a crisis that the federal government has to pay back this very large amount of money. Given that the government generally does not do great things with its money, tying its spending priorities to debt service is probably a positive. Now if Congress tries to raise taxes in a panic to try to address paying the debt off, indeed this would be a disaster. Good: the debt makes the government spend its money on debt service; bad: the debt might prompt the feds to raise taxes. So we really haven't gotten anywhere about identifying what this debt crisis is. 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Are we to believe that across these centuries now of the industrial and technological revolutions, after all the incredible modern progress of the economy since 1750, the private sector has not created of its own accord a means of pricing financial securities such that it needs government bonds as a point of reference? Talk about market failure. The private sector would be at sea unless treasuries existed to rationalize the pricing of financial assets? Obviously such a conclusion is ridiculous. Of course the private sector can price assets correctly of its own accord, and if riskless securities are necessary for this purpose, the private sector can produce them. But the private sector is not producing them—because the government is camping on the market. Here is the problem with the huge debt: its mammoth-ness has prevented the flowering of the private securities market. The industrial revolution proved that the private sector can produce an unimaginable range of products. 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In this context, the tentative deal on rare-earths licensing isn't a niche victory — it's a strategic pivot that underscores: markets reward policy clarity, even in geopolitically charged commodity markets. Yet the calm is temporary. Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariff framework proposes up to 50 percent duties on countries that fail to sign new bilateral deals by July 9. A 90-day grace period has been offered, but this is brinkmanship disguised as strategy. And if the deadline passes without a broader deal, the tariffs snap back — with potentially damaging ripple effects. The last trade escalation offers a cautionary tale. Tariffs on Chinese goods hit 145 percent; Beijing responded with levies up to 125 percent. American manufacturers endured record costs, while exporters in both countries lost access to reliable markets. The U.S. goods trade deficit with China didn't shrink — it widened to $396 billion in 2024. 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Only now, as trade talks signal détente, has the S&P 500 rallied and oil futures stabilized. Markets know the difference between real strategy and performative populism. So do the businesses that depend on open trade. Trump's tariffs didn't reshore factories or rebalance the trade deficit. What they did do was erode U.S. credibility with allies, invite World Trade Organization scrutiny and distort global supply chains. If the objective was to discipline China's behavior, the evidence shows failure. What has worked — albeit modestly — is targeted cooperation, regulatory certainty and consistent enforcement of existing rules. The current agreement is a pragmatic step forward. It restores supply chain continuity for U.S. firms, removes ambiguity for global investors, and signals that economic diplomacy still matters. It also nudges U.S. trade policy back toward rational engagement after years of unilateral theatrics. Legal uncertainty still clouds the picture. 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For now, Washington would do well to recognize what the S&P already has: stability is strength. And the best way to keep markets calm is not through tariffs — but through smart, disciplined diplomacy. Imran Khalid is a physician and has a master's degree in international relations.
