The Morning

: Going hungry in America

《早晨》：在美國(guó)挨餓

March 17, 2023

By German Lopez

2023年3月17日

作者：哲爾曼·洛佩茲

Good morning. America’s neediest are dealing with food stamp cuts and rising prices at the same time.

早上好。美國(guó)最貧困的人群同時(shí)面臨著食品券削減和物價(jià)上漲的問題。

A Dollar General in Lexington, S.C., in 2021.

Erin Schaff /

The New York Times

2021年，南卡羅來納州列克星敦的一美元店。

艾琳·沙夫 /《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》 A 'hunger cliff'

“饑餓之崖”

Earlier this year, millions of Americans got a notice: Your food budget is about to be cut, potentially by hundreds of dollars a month. Here are some tips on how you can manage. You can’t appeal. 今年早些時(shí)候，數(shù)百萬美國(guó)人收到通知：你的食品預(yù)算即將削減，可能是每月數(shù)百美元。這里有一些關(guān)于如何管理的建議。你不能申訴。 The notices signaled the coming end of a federal increase in food stamps that started in the early days of the pandemic, when unemployment spiked and lawmakers feared that hunger would, too. 這些通知標(biāo)志著聯(lián)邦政府增加食品券的做法即將結(jié)束，這種做法始于疫情早期，當(dāng)時(shí)失業(yè)率飆升，議員們擔(dān)心饑餓也會(huì)飆升。 The cuts come at a particularly bad time for low-income Americans. Grocery prices increased 10 percent over the past year, according to data released this week. It amounts to a one-two punch: The country’s neediest have less aid to pay for food as it’s getting more expensive. 對(duì)低收入的美國(guó)人來說，削減預(yù)算的時(shí)機(jī)尤其糟糕。 本周公布的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，食品雜貨價(jià)格在過去一年里上漲了10%。 這相當(dāng)于一記組合拳：隨著食品價(jià)格上漲，該國(guó)最貧困人口獲得的援助減少了。 The big question is what happens now. Some experts have warned that the country is approaching a “hunger cliff,” with the number of Americans going hungry likely to spike this spring. To buy food, other families may have to use money that would otherwise have gone to rent or other bills — and fall behind on those payments. 最大的問題是現(xiàn)在會(huì)發(fā)生什么。一些專家警告說，美國(guó)正在接近“饑餓之崖”，今年春天挨餓的美國(guó)人數(shù)量可能會(huì)激增。為了購(gòu)買食物，其他家庭可能不得不動(dòng)用原本用于房租或其他賬單的錢，從而拖欠這些款項(xiàng)。 The stress on family food budgets represents a tangible example of how a recent rise in the nation’s poverty rate is affecting people’s lives. The poverty rate fell sharply in 2021 — to 7.8 percent by one measure, from 11.8 percent in 2019 — thanks mostly to economic relief laws that Congress passed in response to Covid. But Congress has let many provisions expire, and the poverty rate rose in 2022 as a result. 家庭食品預(yù)算的壓力是最近國(guó)家貧困率上升如何影響人們生活的一個(gè)具體例子。 貧困率在2021年大幅下降，從2019年的11.8%降至7.8%，這主要?dú)w功于國(guó)會(huì)為應(yīng)對(duì)新冠肺炎而通過的經(jīng)濟(jì)救濟(jì)法。 但國(guó)會(huì)讓許多條款到期，導(dǎo)致貧困率在2022年上升。 “It is a very large and abrupt change,” said Ellen Vollinger of Food Research and Action Center, an advocacy group. “The hardship will fall on these families.” “這是一個(gè)非常大而突然的變化，”倡導(dǎo)組織食品研究與行動(dòng)中心（Food Research and Action Center）的艾倫·沃林格（Ellen Vollinger）說，“困難將落在這些家庭身上?！? Emergencies’ end

緊急救濟(jì)計(jì)劃的結(jié)束

We already have a glimpse of how the food stamp cuts will play out. This month’s cuts ended the expanded benefits in the 32 states that still had them, but 18 states had already revoked their extra benefits. In those 18 states, food insecurity, which measures insufficient access to food, rose more quickly than in states that kept the benefits, researchers at Northwestern University and the Jain Family Institute found. 我們已經(jīng)看到了削減食品券將如何發(fā)揮作用。本月的削減結(jié)束了32個(gè)州的擴(kuò)大福利，但18個(gè)州已經(jīng)取消了他們的額外福利。西北大學(xué)（Northwestern University）和杰恩家庭研究所（Jain Family Institute）的研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，在這18個(gè)州，食品不安全狀況（衡量獲得食物的途徑不足）的上升速度比保留福利的州更快。 These charts from my colleague Ashley Wu show the trend in four of the states that cut food stamps earlier. The data fluctuates. But generally, more households struggled to get enough to eat after the cuts: 我的同事阿什利·吳（Ashley Wu）繪制的這些圖表顯示了較早削減食品券的四個(gè)州的趨勢(shì)。數(shù)據(jù)是波動(dòng)的。但總的來說，削減后，越來越多的家庭難以獲得足夠的食物:

Sources: Jack Landry,

Jain Family Institute; U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey

| Data is through August 2022. | By

The New York Times

資料來源：杰克·蘭德里，

杰恩家庭研究所；美國(guó)人口普查局家庭脈搏調(diào)查

（數(shù)據(jù)截止到2022年8月）繪制：《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》 The situation could get worse. When many of those 18 states cut benefits, food prices were rising less quickly than they have been more recently. The government adjusts food stamps for inflation, but only once a year, in October. So if prices keep rising quickly, the real value of food stamps will fall behind for the next several months. 情況可能會(huì)變得更糟。當(dāng)這18個(gè)州中的許多州削減福利時(shí)，食品價(jià)格上漲的速度比最近要慢。政府根據(jù)通貨膨脹調(diào)整食品券，但每年只在10月份調(diào)整一次。因此，如果物價(jià)繼續(xù)快速上漲，食品券的實(shí)際價(jià)值在未來幾個(gè)月將會(huì)下降。 Food stamp benefits will still be higher than they were before the pandemic because the Biden administration separately increased them in 2021. But those increases don’t outweigh the end of emergency benefits for many recipients, meaning their food budgets will still decrease. 食品券福利仍將高于疫情前，因?yàn)榘莸钦?021年單獨(dú)提高了食品券福利。 但對(duì)許多受援者來說，這些增長(zhǎng)并沒有超過緊急救濟(jì)的結(jié)束，這意味著他們的食品預(yù)算仍將減少。 Some conservatives say the warnings are overblown. Angela Rachidi of the American Enterprise Institute argued that the effects of the emergency benefits were exaggerated and that they were always supposed to be temporary. 一些保守派人士說，這些警告言過其實(shí)。 美國(guó)企業(yè)研究所（American Enterprise Institute）的安吉拉?拉奇迪（Angela Rachidi）認(rèn)為，緊急救濟(jì)的效果被夸大了，它們一直被認(rèn)為是暫時(shí)的。 Return to normal

回歸正常

Ultimately, the food stamp cuts will probably push more people — potentially millions more — into poverty, said Megan Curran of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. That increase will largely erase what remains of recent years’ progress on the issue. 哥倫比亞大學(xué)貧困與社會(huì)政策研究中心的梅根·柯倫說，最終，食品券的削減可能會(huì)使更多人——可能是數(shù)百萬人——陷入貧困。這一增長(zhǎng)將在很大程度上抹去近年來在這個(gè)問題上取得的進(jìn)展。 In that sense, the food stamp cuts fit into a broader story: During the pandemic, the U.S. expanded its safety net to prevent the worst outcomes of a crashing economy. Those policies worked to keep people out of poverty. But now that the economy has recovered from the initial pandemic shock, Congress is letting the safety net shrink back down. And poverty is rising back to where it once was. 從這個(gè)意義上講，食品券的削減符合一個(gè)更廣泛的情況：在疫情期間，美國(guó)擴(kuò)大了其安全網(wǎng)，以防止經(jīng)濟(jì)崩潰的最壞結(jié)果。這些政策使人們擺脫了貧困。但現(xiàn)在經(jīng)濟(jì)已經(jīng)從最初的大流行沖擊中復(fù)蘇，國(guó)會(huì)正在讓安全網(wǎng)重新收縮。貧困正在恢復(fù)到以前的水平。

Related:

We know how to end poverty in the U.S. We just don’t want to, Matthew Desmond writes in

Times Opinion

.

相關(guān)內(nèi)容：

我們知道如何結(jié)束美國(guó)的貧困，只是我們不想這樣做，馬修·德斯蒙德在《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》的觀點(diǎn)專欄中寫道。

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.

— German

謝謝你早上花時(shí)間看《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》。明天見。

——哲爾曼

Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

馬修·卡倫、勞倫·哈德、勞倫·杰克遜、克萊爾·摩西、伊恩·普拉薩德·菲爾布里克、湯姆·賴特-皮爾桑蒂和阿什利·吳為《早晨》雜志撰稿。您可以通過themorning@nytimes.com與團(tuán)隊(duì)聯(lián)系。

THE END