April 7, 2022

 

Loss of Income, Food Insecurity, and More: Florida Families Continue to Struggle Amid Pandemic, Survey Data Shows

The latest FPI report,  Keeping a Finger on the Pulse: COVID-19’s Lingering Effects on Florida Families, details some of the hardships that Sunshine State households continue to face in the wake of the pandemic, including loss of income, food insecurity, barriers to paying rent/mortgages on time, loss of health care coverage, and feelings of anxiousness.

The report, authored by Norín Dollard, PhD, senior policy analyst and KIDS COUNT® director, looks at recent U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey data derived from the National KIDS COUNT Data Center.

In its analysis, FPI highlights the following survey data collected from adult respondents who live in households with children:

• Twenty percent reported having lost income in the four weeks preceding the date of the survey. When examined by race and ethnicity, 28 percent of Black adults, 27 percent of Hispanic adults, and 13 percent of non-Hispanic white households reported such a loss of income.

• Twenty-three percent reported little or no confidence in their ability to pay their next rent or mortgage payment. This includes 38 percent of Black families, 26 percent of Hispanic families, and 17 percent of non-Hispanic white families.

• Nearly one in three reported “feeling anxious, nervous or on edge for more than half the days in the preceding week.”

• Twelve percent reported having no health insurance.

• Fourteen percent reported that there “sometimes or often” was not enough to eat in preceding week.

To mitigate this hardship and equitably improve child well-being so that all of Florida’s children thrive, FPI recommends both state and federal policy measures, including making the American Rescue Plan Act’s expanded Child Tax Credit permanent, expanding access to child care and universal pre-K, expanding Medicaid to adults with low-income, and more.

FULL REPORT

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