By Ed Prince
Executive Director, Washington State Commission on African American Affairs
As COVID stretches into the 12th month, we need to be mindful of Food Insecurity.
COVID 19 has had a significant impact on our daily living. Family members have been lost; restaurants are closed; schools are closed. One of the many issues we have to keep in front of mind is food insecurity. According to research by Washington State University and the University of Washington on food access during COVID 19:
• In households with an income of more than 15k, food insecurity ranged from 3% to 58%.
• 59% of food-insecure households had children.
• 42% of persons surveyed were people of color, and according to the report, respondents of color were more than 1.5 times to be found food insecure than white respondents.
These numbers group all people of color together, but you see the reality of food insecurity for African Americans in Washington when you look at additional data sets.
According to Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research:
• In the United States, people with children are food insecure at 30.4% per week vs. 39.7% for African Americans.
• In Washington State, people with children are food insecure at 24.2% per week vs. 47.7 percent of African Americans.
Those numbers are staggering and would be an issue at any time but are especially concerning during a pandemic when children are home from school and can’t depend on the consistent two meals they can receive five days a week.
We need to support organizations like the Emergency Feeding Program who have answered the call and have done yeoman’s work to bridge the gap, but they can’t do it alone. We need strong public policy to erase this health disparity and to ensure that people have access to nutritious food.
