As pandemic-era assistance programs expire, the rate of food insecurity for rural households is rising higher than in their urban counterparts.
“The percentage of rural households experiencing food insecurity grew by 4 points in 2022 to 15%,” as compared to a growth of 12 percent in metropolitan areas, reports Sarah Melotte for The Daily Yonder.
“The increasing gap between rural and urban food insecurity suggests that rural communities are struggling to bounce back from pandemic challenges more than their urban peers,” Melotte adds.
One aspect of growing food insecurity is the loss of free school meal programs, the cost of which can add up for a low-income family. “At the end of 2021, Congress also allowed the expiration of the expanded child tax credit. The credit cut child poverty in half during the first year of the pandemic. But new census data shows that child poverty doubled after the expansions ended.”
The article also attributes the higher rate to renewed work requirements for SNAP recipients and increases in the cost of living that “disproportionately hurt rural communities because they deal with both longer distances to grocery stores and higher fuel prices.”
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