Latinos and Black American adults are at a much higher risk of experiencing food insecurity than their white counterparts, according to a new study by the Urban Institute.
Sky-high food price inflation has added financial hardship for families across the country, especially Latinos. That hardship is likely to be exacerbated now that pandemic-era enhanced benefits have ended.
The study, published this week, is based on annual surveys of at least 7,500 people in the U.S. — 1,555 of whom identify as Hispanic or Latino — conducted each December from 2019 to 2022.
According to the study, the shares of Hispanic and Black respondents who reported food insecurity last year were about 50% higher than the share of white adults who reported food insecurity.
58% of Hispanic respondents in the Urban Institute survey in 2022 said they had reduced the amount of food they bought, compared to 49% of white respondents, the study found.
That suggests Hispanic families were less able to absorb the rising costs of food, the study’s authors write.
The researchers also found that Hispanic adults were more likely than their white counterparts to report last year dipping into savings (50.5%) or increasing credit card debt (nearly 44%) to pay for higher food costs.
The federal government last month ended pandemic-era increases in the amount of money given to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients.
About 23% (or five million) of SNAP recipients have a Hispanic head of household, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which analyzed 2021 American Community Survey data.
The center said about 4 million Hispanic households were expected to lose the boosted assistance.
What they’re saying: When fighting hunger, “the first line of the defense is typically the SNAP program, which is difficult to hear considering the erosion of emergency allotments,” says study author Kassandra Martinchek, a research associate at the Urban Institute.
Immigrant or mixed-status families may be afraid to access public benefits like the child tax credit, which could contribute to the disproportionate rates of food insecurity among Latinos, says Poonam Gupta, also a research associate at the institute.
“We also have qualitative evidence that things like language barriers, lack of culturally appropriate food is a barrier to Latinx families” accessing food assistance, Gupta adds. (sorry, they go after families)
Organizations such as the Christian advocacy group Bread for the World are fighting to reduce hunger, says Marco Grimaldo, a strategist for Latino communities.
Grimaldo works with religious leaders across the country, including many in charge of churches that also provide food assistance, to learn the needs of Hispanic families which he says vary greatly depending on factors such as educational concern, immigration status and how long individuals have been in the U.S.
Grimaldo also says the government should change existing policies to allow legal permanent residents to access public benefits (they currently have to wait five years to do so).
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