By Alicia Wallace, CNN
(CNN) — There’s been a “remarkable” increase over the past few years in Americans struggling to put food on the table, and that’s likely contributing to record-low consumer sentiment readings, new Federal Reserve Bank of New York research showed Wednesday.
The New York Fed updated a 2020 analysis on the disproportionate financial effects of the pandemic with newly collected data from its closely watched Survey of Consumer Expectations.
Researchers found that a greater share of Americans have become more “food insecure” than they were in May and June of 2020 and are dipping into savings to cover expenses, struggling to access food, have kids who missed meals, or are receiving food donations or federal nutrition assistance.
“We find a remarkable increase in food insecurity, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income households and households with young children,” New York Fed researchers wrote Wednesday.
Those same groups also reported increases in pessimism regarding their financial well-being.
While not necessarily causal, the association between rising food insecurity and increased pessimism points to a potential explanation as to why US consumer sentiment has been in the dumps despite economic data remaining fairly resilient, if not quite strong, researchers noted.
Income and wealth inequality have long persisted in the US, but Americans’ economic experiences and outcomes have become increasingly uneven in recent years.
This dynamic, frequently referred to as a “K-shaped” economy, is defined by a widening inequality in how lower- and higher-income Americans spend, earn and build wealth.
Those in the top half of the K have seen their household finances and wealth enriched by soaring stock prices, equity in their home and a refinancing boom that lowered mortgage payments and padded their piggy banks.
Meanwhile, those on the bottom end of the K have experienced significantly greater levels of financial stress because of the higher cost of living, the post-pandemic inflation burst and five-plus years of prices rising faster than they typically do.
“The greater financial strain due to the high cost of living, combined with the expiration of pandemic-era aid (such as expanded [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits), have led to renewed concerns about food insecurity among those at the bottom of the K-shape,” New York Fed researchers wrote.
In February 2026, 10% of households surveyed said they didn’t have enough food, an increase from 4% in June 2020, according to the data released Wednesday. Shares of people receiving food donations increased (to 15.8% from 10.6%) as well as SNAP (17.9% versus 10.6%), and more than one-third of respondents used their savings to cover expenses (36.8% versus 21.8%).
The New York Fed survey data was gathered before the US-Israeli strikes in the Middle East that subsequently resulted in an oil supply crunch that caused a spike in gas prices and further heightened affordability concerns.
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