Covid Financial Benefits End Exposing Increased Poverty

We aren’t quite sure how it happened.  The government shut down the nation for a few weeks to “slow the curve”, but weeks went into months, and months went to years.  Businesses were bankrupt, salespeople fired, millions lost jobs.  Then nurses were told to stay home if they refused the vax.  Of course the government had to step in and start issuing Covid checks so folks had some income.  They printed all that money which led to inflation.  And now that the doors of business have opened again, millions of workers seemed to have vanished.  There is no one left to work at McDonald’s, so they raise their wages to $15/hr and then raise the price of a plain cheeseburger to $3.59 to pay for inflated food and inflated wages.  Now even the poor can’t afford to eat at McDonald’s.  And now that the government has caused massive inflation, they have made more poor people.  It’s an ugly circle.

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 Now, people are waiting up to nine hours in mile-long lines for free food - some of whom say they can only afford to eat once per day, while others say they limit expensive food items such as meat for specific family members, such as growing teenage boys.

"I thought, ‘Wow, the government is trying to kill us now," said 63-year-old Danny Blair of Kentucky. Blair, who lives in a mobile home with his wife, survives on his Social Security disability check, the Washington Post reports.

"They are going to starve us out," Blair continued, apparently unaware that government assistance provided during the pandemic wasn't permanent.

Blair and his wife hop into their truck twice a month at 4 a.m. to ensure they get a few staples at the Hazel Green Food Project’s giveaway. On a recent Friday, they waited nine hours until local prisoners on work duty started loading bags of meat and vegetables, potato chips and cookies into vehicles in one of the nation’s most impoverished communities.

From the front to the back of the line, the sea of despair and hardship along this desolate Kentucky highway foreshadowed what may be in store for millions of Americans as the federal government ended the remaining pandemic increase in monthly food stamp benefits this week. -WaPo

As the Post frames it, the pullback of pandemic-related aid could pose a setback to the Biden administration's efforts to 'slash poverty' while building a 'healthier and more sustainable middle class' - none of which were the stated goals of the temporary aid.

"We saw positive benefits from this and less hardship, including for families with children," said Dottie Rosenbaum, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who points out that all the free money helped reduce childhood poverty rates in 2021. "We can expect that to reverse now."

Following the reduction in benefits, the average SNAP recipient's benefits are expected to drop by around $90 per month, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That said, an even greater reduction is in store for seniors and the working poor who receive assistance from other government programs, and will likely qualify for less.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/government-trying-kill-us-now-low-income-americans-fume-mile-long-food-lines-after