Latest news with #JohnLeer
Russia Today
07-07-2025
- Business
- Russia Today
US food poverty doubles in 4 years
Food insecurity among American adults has nearly doubled since 2021, Axios reported on Sunday, citing data from Morning Consult. The striking statistic comes amid steep cuts to federal food assistance programs in the world's largest economy, fueling concerns about the welfare of millions. US President Donald Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' signed into law last week includes $230 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over the next decade. The legislation imposes stricter work requirements, extending mandates to individuals up to age 64 and reducing exemptions for parents. The proportion of US adults reporting that they sometimes or often do not have enough to eat has been steadily rising in recent years, according to the survey. In May, 15.6% of adults were classified as food insecure, nearly twice the rate recorded in 2021. At that time, expanded SNAP benefits and an enhanced Child Tax Credit had helped reduce poverty and increase access to food. The increase in food insecurity comes as the US economy shows signs of strength and stock markets hit record highs. John Leer, chief economist at Morning Consult, noted a problem: 'There's such a disconnect now between record highs on Wall Street and elevated levels of food insecurity.' In Philadelphia, the Share Food Program, a major food bank network, has reported a 120% increase in demand over the past three years. 'As soon as the government support pulled back in 2022, we started to see the numbers go up,' the outlet quoted Executive Director George Matysik as saying. The situation is likely to worsen following the recent passage of sweeping cuts to the SNAP by Congress requiring states to increase funding and imposes stricter work requirements for recipients. Critics say the changes could strip benefits from millions or reduce the amount of aid they receive. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that expanded work requirements could remove food assistance from 3.2 million people in an average month, the outlet noted. Food banks across the country are reportedly bracing for increased demand as the cuts take effect, the outlet said. Many organizations are already struggling to meet their current needs, and the anticipated rise in food insecurity is expected to strain resources further.
Axios
06-07-2025
- Business
- Axios
An increasing share of American adults are going hungry
More Americans are going hungry, per new data from Morning Consult. 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.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tariffs will impact inflation in a 'steady drip,' not a surge
Tariff effects may take years to fully show up in inflation data. John Leer, chief economist at Morning Consult, joins Catalysts to explain why businesses are passing on costs slowly and what that means for consumer prices and hiring. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here. The May Consumer Price Index is set to be released on Wednesday. Core year of year inflation expected to come in at 2.9%, and core prices expected to tick up three tenths of a percent higher for the month. Investors expecting the Fed to hold rates steady in the June meeting as inflation remains stubbornly above its 2% target. For more, I want to bring in John Leer, he's Morning Consults Chief economist, on what to expect from this week's data. Great to have you on here, John. Talk to me about what you're anticipating ahead of that key CPI print this week. Yeah, thanks for having me. Well, I think, as you mentioned, I expect to see inflation remain stubbornly high. I still don't think we're going to fully see the impact of, uh, tariffs on inflation. I imagine that will be spread out over the course of the full year with some of it actually backloaded towards the end of the year as businesses increasingly face pressures to pass on, uh, elevated costs. But I think the real question from this particular report is going to be how concentrated are those tariff related, tariff-induced, uh, cost increases. Uh, my expectation is that it will remain fairly muted, uh, through the month of May. So when do we finally see it? I keep feeling like sources are telling me, oh, we can ignore this data, we can ignore this data, we don't have the tariffs in place yet. When can I finally say, okay, guys, we can't ignore it anymore? We see something, I think pretty different relative to the consensus. We run a quarterly survey with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and it showed that, uh, small businesses, at least, expect to spend, um, roughly two years passing on the full cost of tariffs to their customers. And so my expectation is actually that we will see sort of a steady drip of price increases rather than this one-off, uh, surge. Due likely to the sort of competitive dynamics in the US economy, it doesn't benefit any company to be the first one out to increase costs when, in fact, the tariff policy might, might change underneath you. And so we really need to see more stable policy announcements, and that, I think, will lead to, uh, a pretty, uh, gradual but protracted period of cost increases. Yeah, and similarly, what are you hearing from those small businesses about the employment picture going forward? Our read is that employment actually has not, uh, pulled back. I think what we see is that the rate of hiring has slowed, um, but it's been slowing at a, on a trajectory sort of consistent with where we were prior to the tariffs. So it doesn't look to us like tariff induced, uh, we've seen tariff induced hiring pullback or hiring slowdown. And that's really counter again to the narrative that existed, let's say a few months ago where everyone expected tariff uncertainty to drive and pull back an investment and then even potentially, uh, uh, elevated layoffs. We simply don't see that. I think small businesses and consumers out there as well, what they're seeing is that the, the, the world remains fairly uncertain. It still is in the financial interest of companies to keep workers on their payrolls when there's so much demand, um, to benefit from. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Consumers have 'breathing room' as tariffs take time to hit
Consumer spending is holding up as tariff impacts have yet to hit wallets. Morning Consult chief economist John Leer explains why shoppers haven't changed behavior despite rising trade tensions. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here. Hey John. I you know, uh it's amazing what a difference a week makes in terms of trade talks and negotiations. It looks really constructive. But my question for you is, how do we factor in the the chance that these trade talks could fall apart just as quickly as they came together? And at what point does the consumer just get fatigued and change their behavior permanently because of that? They don't know when it's gonna happen. I mean, how do you, how do you calculate for that? I mean, it's a great question. I think thus far, what we've seen from consumers is some reticence to dramatically change their behaviors in response to trade negotiations, tariff negotiations, right? Because announcing 145% tariff uh on Chinese-made goods is not the same as in fact, paying 145% more the next day. Companies have ways of working around things. We also know from our our small business survey that we run with the Boston Fed that small businesses were very reluctant to immediately pass on those elevated costs that were gonna do so over a period of two plus years. So I think from the perspective of consumers, they're sitting back and they're saying, well what does this mean for me and my pocketbook? Um the the expectations of tariffs, I think wrongfully were over uh, you know, I think people wrongfully thought tariff announcements and tariff expectations were immediately gonna affect consumer's pocketbooks. That didn't happen, and so we've got some breathing room right now. And I expect consumers to go back uh and spend.
