Tag Archives: pandemic aid

Homeless rate increases across the country

Homeless-Tent

Important Takeaways:

  • US homelessness up 12% to highest reported level as rents soar and coronavirus pandemic aid lapses
  • The United States experienced a dramatic 12% increase in homelessness to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, federal officials said Friday.
  • About 653,000 people were homeless, the most since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007. The total in the January count represents an increase of about 70,650 from a year earlier.
  • The latest estimate indicates that people becoming homeless for the first time were behind much of the increase.
  • Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, a federal agency, said “The most significant causes are the shortage of affordable homes and the high cost of housing that have left many Americans living paycheck to paycheck and one crisis away from homelessness,” Olivet said.
  • Within the overall rise, homelessness among individuals rose by nearly 11%, among veterans by 7.4% and among families with children by 15.5%.

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More people are looking to Food Banks for help

Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Lines stretch down the block at food banks as costs go up and pandemic aid expires
  • Many more Americans now are going hungry than at the peak of the pandemic aid. Some 24.6 million adults didn’t have enough to eat in early April versus 16.7 million the same month two years ago, the Census Bureau estimates.
  • At the same time, food prices have soared more than any other major category of consumer costs except energy since the start of the pandemic, disproportionately burdening poor Americans who devote a larger share of their resources to such essential expenses. Since February 2020, the last month before the pandemic lockdown, grocery prices have surged half again as much as the 16% increase in overall consumer prices.
  • Concerns are rising of a recession on the horizon, adding to the peril for households on edge. Morgan Stanley economists said the expiration of the pandemic food stamp benefit is already weighing on economic growth and project an annualized $50 billion hit to disposable income.
  • The Haymarket Regional Food Pantry in Gainesville, Virginia, an outer Washington suburb, added 55 new weekly intake appointments in April after a 90% increase in families seeking food
  • The Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, which supplies more than 1,100 local pantries around the rural Susquehanna Valley, faced 10% more demand in March. At Southern Colorado’s Care and Share Food Bank, which distributes to soup kitchens, pantries and emergency shelters across 29 mostly rural counties, requests for aid rose 20%.

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Stress of high inflation with no pandemic aid show Bankruptcies on the rise

Bankruptcy

Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived

Important Takeaways:

  • Now that pandemic aid has vanished, bankruptcies are on the rise
  • Total bankruptcy filings in January shot up 19% in January to 31,087, up 19% from a year ago, according to data from Epiq, a legal research firm. The number of Americans who filed for bankruptcy across Chapters 7, 11 and 13 shot up 20% in January from a year ago.
  • The surge in filings comes as rising interest rates and high inflation continue to stress household budgets.

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Trump signs pandemic aid and spending bill, averting government shutdown

By Steve Holland and Susan Cornwell

PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday signed into law a $2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package, restoring unemployment benefits to millions of Americans and averting a federal government shutdown.

The President had demanded that Congress change the bill to increase the size of stimulus checks for struggling Americans to $2,000 from $600 and also cut some other spending.

After signing the bill, Trump said he was signing the bill with “a strong message that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be removed.”

“Much more money is coming,” he insisted in a statement.

Many economists agree the financial aid in the bill should be higher to get the economy moving again but say that immediate support for Americans hit by coronavirus lockdowns is still urgently needed.

Unemployment benefits being paid out to about 14 million people through pandemic programs lapsed on Saturday, but will be restarted now that Trump has signed the bill.

The package includes $1.4 trillion in spending to fund government agencies. If Trump had not signed the legislation, then a partial government shutdown would have begun on Tuesday that would have put millions of government workers’ incomes at risk.

Americans are living through a bitter holiday season amid a pandemic that has killed nearly 330,000 people in the United States, with a daily death toll now repeatedly well over 3,000 people, the highest since the pandemic began.

The relief package also extends a moratorium on evictions that was due to expire on Dec. 31, refreshes support for small business payrolls, provides funding to help schools re-open and aid for the transport industry and vaccine distribution.

Trump noted that the House of Representatives planned to vote on Monday to increase coronavirus relief checks to individuals from $600 to $2,000, and said the Senate “will start the process” to approve higher payments.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Susan Cornwell; additional reporting by Aram Roston and Matt Spetalnick; Writing by Matt Spetalnick and Alistair Bell. Editing by Daniel Wallis and Diane Craft)