Let's take a moment and think about food insecurity: How is it different from hunger? Why does it matter?

Food insecurity, according to the USDA, is “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.” Essentially, food insecurity is the inability of a household, family or individual to adequately access a diet that meets their needs for both caloric intake and nutritional value.

Hunger, on the other hand, is a “physiological condition that may result from food insecurity” resulting in “discomfort, illness, weakness or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation."

Although food insecurity does not always result in hunger, there are several other chronic health conditions that it is also associated with. These include nutrient deficiency, poor oral health, birth defects and cognitive issues in children, depression, diabetes and hypertension. It is therefore imperative for us as a community to understand and address the underlying causes of food insecurity.

COVID-19

During the COVID-19 crisis, Massachusetts has seen the highest increase in food insecurity of any U.S. state. Although our level of food insecurity is still below the national average, 14.2% of Massachusetts residents are projected to be food insecure by the end of this year, compared to 8% before the coronavirus crisis.

Although food insecurity has been exacerbated by the pandemic, it was already a significant issue in Massachusetts prior to COVID-19 — especially among communities of color, particularly the Black and Latino communities.

In 2019, an estimated 24% of Latino adults and 10% of Black adults reported having “low or very low food security" compared to 6%t of white adults and 5% of Asian American/Pacific Islander adults.

In 2020, the pandemic caused these numbers to increase for all ethnicities — but again, disproportionately for communities of color. In 2020, 26% of Latino adults and 24% of Black adults in Massachusetts reported being food insecure, compared to 13% of white adults and 13% of AAPI adults.

The concerning levels of food insecurity, especially for underserved minorities, both before and during the pandemic raise the question of how we got here.

Income Disparities

The cost of living in Massachusetts, particularly in the greater Boston area, has been rising over the past decade. In 2019, average rent in the greater Boston area was $2,349 in all apartment categories, which was the fourth highest in the country. As of the end of 2019, the only metro areas in the United States that had higher average rents than greater Boston were New York, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.

For the average family in Massachusetts with three members and one working adult, the estimated living wage is $57,897. For a family of three with two working adults, it’s $72,228. The median white family in Massachusetts has an income of just above $80,000, while the median Latino family has an income of below $60,000 and the median Black family has an income of below $55,000.

The relatively low median wages of Black and Latino families compared to the relatively high cost of living and increasing rent prices in Massachusetts mean that these ethnic groups are acutely affected by food insecurity.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to discuss the disparities in income and food security between white, AAPI, Black and Latino families without also discussing systemic racism. Systemic racism impacts underserved minorities across multiple aspects of their life, which include, but are not limited to, discrimination in the criminal justice system, the public education system and the public benefits system.

Criminal Justice

According to a recent report published by Harvard’s Criminal Justice Policy Program, there continue to be significant disparities experienced in the criminal justice system by Black and Latino individuals when compared to white individuals, despite Massachusetts having a relatively low rate of incarceration when compared to the rest of the nation.

Black and Latino people are more likely than white people to get arrested and convicted for drug and weapons charges. When convicted for the same offense, they often receive longer sentences than their white counterparts. Black people in Massachusetts are incarcerated at eight times the rate of white people, and Latino people are incarcerated at rates five times the rate of white people. The over-policing of Black and Latino communities and the higher rates of criminal records that result cause members of these communities and their families to face additional barriers to accessing employment and housing. Access to well-paying jobs and affordable housing are both essential components of ensuring financial stability and long-term food security.

Education

A high-quality primary and secondary education system is one of the keys to ensuring higher college graduation rates, upward mobility and financial security for people who live in low-income communities of color. However, over the past two decades, segregation in public schools, particularly urban public schools, has continued to be a persistent problem, and low-income Black and Latino children increasingly find themselves grouped together in school districts primarily with other low-income children of color.

Although there are 72% fewer “intensely segregated” schools in Massachusetts with primarily white children today than there were in 2008, the number of “intensely segregated” schools with primarily children of color has actually increased by 33%. Since white families in Massachusetts have much greater access to wealth and influence than Black and Latino families, they are often able to lobby for resources more successfully for their school districts than are families of color.

Furthermore, since public schools in Massachusetts are funded through a combination of property tax revenue and state aid, and since low-income urban areas have lower property tax revenue, schools in these communities end up being chronically under-resourced.

The income- and race-based disparities in primary and secondary education, and the differences in education quality and standardized test scores — particularly Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System scores — that result from all this can have long term effects on the earnings attained by white students versus those attained by Black and Latino students. For students who took the tenth grade MCAS exam between 2003 and 2005, there was, on average, a 31% gap in 2019 earnings between Black and white students and a 28% earnings gap between Latino and white students. When differences in MCAS and “educational attainment” were accounted for, these gaps narrowed to 12% for Black and white students and 1% for Latino and white students. These statistics show the significance of access to high-quality education in reducing racial disparities in income and thereby reducing the likelihood of food insecurity.

Public Benefits

Perhaps the most important short-term relievers of food insecurity for low-income families are state and federal public benefits programs. In Massachusetts, the two most prominent public benefits programs that address food insecurity are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and the Women Infant and Children program, or WIC.

Although WIC is generally viewed as being both administratively efficient and easy to access for participants, there are several issues with SNAP that lead to difficulties in accessibility and discrimination against immigrants and other minorities. In a survey conducted in East Boston, a lower income community in the Boston area with a significant immigrant and minority community, 56% of survey participants were shown to be participating in WIC while only 29% were shown to be participating in SNAP. Low participation in SNAP results from the stigma surrounding food stamps, barriers to access for immigrants and difficulties in the application process.

Unlike the WIC program, use of food stamps is often viewed by society and by members of low-income communities as a sign of “weakness” or of an inability to provide for one’s family. Due to this stigma surrounding SNAP and the sense of shame that sometimes accompanies it, many low-income families choose not to enroll in the program even if they need it.

For immigrant families, there are several structural barriers that also exist when accessing SNAP. Undocumented immigrants are not allowed to access SNAP benefits at all, and several groups of authorized immigrants must also wait five years prior to being able to access the program. Even those immigrants who qualify for SNAP benefits may still be hesitant to accept them because of public charge rules that enable U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service officials to consider their use of public benefits when determining whether to grant them permanent residency. The application of these rules to individual immigration cases was significantly expanded by the Trump administration in 2018. As a result, many authorized immigrants do not take advantage of SNAP out of fear of being denied a Green Card.

Furthermore, many SNAP applicants have also reported that the application process is cumbersome and that they had an “alienating experience” when attempting to access benefits over the phone.

The stigma surrounding the use of SNAP in low-income communities of color, the structural discrimination of the program against immigrants and the administrative difficulties applicants face in accessing the program all contribute to many food insecure families not receiving the short-term relief that they desperately need.

What Next?

Addressing food insecurity, particularly in low-income communities of color, will require a multi-faceted solution that addresses both the short- and long-term needs of these communities.

In the short term, relief must be made more accessible for these communities. Although the new COVID-19 relief bill includes $13 billion to increase SNAP and child nutrition benefits, it does not include much-needed state and local aid which can be used to provide additional funding to local food pantries and soup kitchens, both major sources of hunger relief for Massachusetts residents during the pandemic.

The Massachusetts government should push the Biden administration to pass additional COVID-19 relief funding at a state and local level. Furthermore, Massachusetts should reduce its eligibility criteria for SNAP, streamline the application process to make it more accessible to marginalized communities and pressure the federal government to eliminate public charge rules.

In the long term, reducing food insecurity in a permanent and sustainable way will require a complete re-imagining of city, state and federal budgets to emphasize social and economic justice. Any long-term solution must prioritize improvements to affordable housing, public health, education and access to well-paying employment opportunities for Black and Latino communities instead of their criminalization through over-investment in and overuse of prisons and law enforcement.

Asad Khimani is a young professional and Massachusetts native who is passionate about social impact and public policy.