The interconnected issues of COVID-19, inflation, and a baby formula shortage have been pummeling the United States, and the most vulnerable among us are being hit the hardest.
Inflation reached a four-decade-high in April and has continued to rise since then. Food has been one of the commodities hit hardest, along with other necessities like housing and gas. Low-income and minority families also make up the majority of baby formula purchases, and the food banks that these families often rely on to get them through hard times are beginning to run out of food.
Unlike their wealthier counterparts, low-income families often don't have the resources to weather rising prices and shortages of essentials. While the Ukraine invasion and COVID-19 have certainly worsened food insecurity around the globe, the driving force behind the problem is still inequality.
Food Banks Run Dry
Food banks in the U.S. have seen a "drumbeat of increasing demand, month over month" since the beginning of the year, says the president of Feeding America, Katie Fitzgerald. According to Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore President and CEO Christopher Tan, inventories are down and both food and transportation costs are only getting higher.
"Our experience is that this rise in food and fuel costs are creating just as precarious a situation for people who are trying to feed their families as was the case during the pandemic," said Fitzgerald.
The sparse inventories are caused by a variety of factors. Tan says that everyday staples like cereal and pasta are becoming harder to find on store shelves, and fewer food donations have been coming from grocery stores thanks to advancements in online ordering during the pandemic.
Along with lower supply, there is also higher demand: while food banks have historically been seen as a way for families to recover from emergencies, more and more families are relying on the food these organizations provide just to get by.
Some of these issues may be new, but inequality is not, and Fitzgerald says that inequality is the root of the issue. Wages have remained relatively flat for decades, but housing, food, and transportation costs have skyrocketed. Fitzgerald says that the system isn't equipped to make up the difference.
"Thirty, 40 years ago, it was really an emergency food system for people who really had no other option," Fitzgerald told NPR. "Today, we're seeing a lot of folks that are budgeting in charitable food to their monthly budget. And when that is happening in this country, something is fundamentally wrong, because a lot of these folks are working."
Baby Formula Crisis
When an Abbott baby formula manufacturer voluntarily issued a recall and shut down its factory in February, it triggered a nationwide crisis for American infants, particularly those in low-income households.
The plant was shut down after two infant deaths were linked to contaminated formula, but it's unclear why the plant has remained closed in the months that followed. Alongside the Abbott closure, other plants have been struggling to get the components they need through choked and dried-up supply chains.
According to the Wall Street Journal, by April, 40% of America's most popular baby formula brands were unavailable on store shelves. For reference, that rete normally hovers at around 10% during normal times. As of the end of May, several states were out of 95% of all baby formula stock.
While the use of baby formula for infants isn't particular to low-income households, it is more common: according to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Association, its recipients make up between half and 65% of all baby formula purchases, enough to feed 1.2 million babies.
"This crisis, which is truly a manufacturing sector failure, has impacted all parents of formula-fed infants, but it magnifies the disparities that have long existed," said Brian Dittmeier, senior director of public policy at the National WIC Association. "Searching for formula has to an extent become a full-time job, and low-income families that are working two jobs already may not have the bandwidth to fully invest in the search."
Formula use is also affected by rates of breastfeeding, with mothers who have the ability or chance to breastfeed being less likely to rely on formula. Amongst all racial groups in the U.S., Black mothers were the least likely to breastfeed their babies, but this isn't a sign of poor parenting decisions. Some mothers and babies are simply unable to breastfeed, but many other mothers don't have the chance to breastfeed their babies because of their jobs or other obligations.