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Understand that most of the folks featured in this article would be counted as *not poor* in those rosy poverty estimates we've seen. Our weird US poverty measure is not the right way to assess economic insecurity in the pandemic 1/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/coronavirus-unemployment-delays-dc/2020/08/01/50016264-c522-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_benefitsdelayed748pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
Delayed unemployment payments create large problems for people living on low-incomes. They have little room to breathe. So they may lose housing before their large lump sum payment comes in 2/
And we see in other data the consequence of these policy and administrative failures. Food insecurity remains at all time highs, greater than the Great Recession. 3/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/07/09/about-14-million-children-in-the-us-are-not-getting-enough-to-eat/
The pandemic EBT (for kids) can dramatically reduce food insecurity, but large fractions of children aren't receiving it. Case: Tennessee is returning $60 million in EBT funds because they required applications and didn't tell families they're eligible 4/ https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/30/tennessee-may-forfeit-60-m-pandemic-ebt-funds-applications-stall/5535427002/
We're also now staring down what will be a huge income cliff because they didn't extend UI benefits. Even if they do it soon, there will be a huge lag in receipt, during a period when rent (including back payments) is coming due 5/ https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/the-600-unemployment-boost-is-almost-over-for-some-their-aid-will-fall-93-percent.html
The regular poverty measure can't capture how having no income cushion means losing your home or not having enough to eat when you face delays in receiving UI or other supports. It's a terrible tool to assess US poverty given the huge failures in US welfare administration 6/
