(NEW YORK) — Eli Lilly will cut the price of its most commonly prescribed insulin products by 70% and expand a program that caps patient costs at $35 per month, the company said on Wednesday.
“While the current healthcare system provides access to insulin for most people with diabetes, it still does not provide affordable insulin for everyone and that needs to change,” David Ricks, chair and CEO of Eli Lilly, said in a statement.
“The aggressive price cuts we’re announcing today should make a real difference for Americans with diabetes,” he added.
The Indianapolis-based drugmaker faced a bipartisan pressure campaign from members of Congress, which included a two-year Senate probe of insulin prices that concluded in 2021.
The Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in August, set a $35 price cap on insulin products for Medicare recipients.
During his State of the Union Address last month, President Joe Biden called on Congress to extend the $35 price cap on insulin products for all patients.
The price of Humalog, Eli Lilly’s most frequently prescribed insulin drug, will drop 70% beginning at the end of this year, the company said. The discount affects a slew of Humalog products, including Humalog U-100, Humalog Mix 50/50 and Humalog Mix 75/25.
(NEW YORK) — When Alyn Carroll received information that her Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will soon be substantially decreased, her emotions almost overtook her.
“I wanted to cry,” Carroll, 56, told ABC News. “I wanted to cry because I just started feeling comfortable where I could budget every week a certain amount of money to spend and I did OK with that. But now, they taking that back? It’s like, what is a person to do?”
Carroll, who lives in Baltimore, has been using SNAP to buy food for around seven years and said it is a crucial part of her grocery budget as a person with diabetes. The remaining SNAP emergency allotments that were expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic are set to expire, however — and Carroll’s monthly SNAP check will go from $283 to just $56, she said.
“You can’t survive off of $56 a week, let alone four weeks,” she said. “That extra money helped. I mean, it didn’t fix the problem, but it helped greatly. With them taking those funds back, it’s going to be terrible because we already didn’t have enough money to feed our families.”
While nearly 30 million Americans could see reduced payments when the expanded SNAP benefits expire, Black and Latino communities may be pushed back below the poverty line without the support of the emergency allotments, which were temporarily extended during a time of financial and economic hardship from the pandemic.
According to a study from the Urban Institute, SNAP’s benefits kept 4.2 million people out of poverty since the fourth quarter of 2021, with the largest poverty reduction from the program for Black and Hispanic people.
The emergency allotments reduced poverty by 10% and child poverty by 14% in their states, according to the study.
Eighteen states have already ended the extra SNAP benefits, impacting some 12 million Americans. The remaining 32 states and the jurisdictions of Washington, D.C., Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands follow suit on Wednesday.
“It’s important to know that communities of color have a higher rate of poverty at a national and statewide level than their white counterparts. Because of that, they’re already at a disadvantage in terms of access to benefits,” said Gina Plata-Nino, Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) deputy director for SNAP.
The FRAC prioritizes improving the nutrition, health and well-being of people struggling against poverty-related hunger in the U.S. through advocacy, partnerships, and by advancing bold and equitable policy solutions, according to its website.
According to the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey data, food insufficiency — or “sometimes” or “often” not having enough to eat — continues to be over twice as high for Black and Latino adults compared to white adults.
“SNAP is able to protect people. It pushes them out of the poverty hole. It allows them to have enough resources to be able to feed their kiddos and I think it’s important to know that while this is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for many of these families, it is also their one sole income to feed their families,” Plata-Nino said.
While Carroll is solely responsible for finding food for herself, she expressed empathy for those in her community with families who will struggle because of the end of SNAP’s emergency benefits.
She said she also worries how food banks will be able to pivot during a time of record inflation, with food prices up 10.1% in January, compared with a year ago, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
President and CEO of the Atlanta Community Food Bank Kevin Waide told ABC News that his organization currently spends around $2 million just for food purchases, a record-breaking number for the facility.
“Food banks are sourcing food from donations from federal commodity support and food that we buy, and for every dollar of food resources that are taken out of the SNAP program, we have to find a way to make up for that,” Waide said.
“And so that means we’ve got to go raise more money, buy more food donations, buy more food. And at the scale that we’re talking about, that’s just a very challenging proposition right now in our food bank. … And even now, we are not meeting the food needs in our community. I don’t think, given the level of demand that’s out there,” he said.
The bank serves 600,000 people in 29 counties across Georgia, one of the states that discontinued SNAP’s emergency allotments after May 2022. Since then, Waide said, his food bank saw a 30% increase in visits.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s office has pointed to low unemployment and other positive economic news in the state, in light of the reduced benefits, but said last year: “If any Georgian or Georgia families are experiencing food insecurity, we have many other statewide programs to help support them.”
“The state made its decision for a variety of reasons, not just because they didn’t want to extend benefits, but there are other factors that went into that decision,” Waide said.
That had real consequences, he told ABC News.
“So many families across our community are facing significant financial pressure right now, and losing $100 a month really puts them in harm’s way,” he said. “We hear that every day from our neighbors that we’re serving, that that additional money has helped them keep food on the table as food prices have continued to increase and as they’re trying to recover from the long-term effects of the pandemic.”
Although some households may see around $95 or less gone in their budget for groceries, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, factors such as family size and income can result in some families losing hundreds of dollars each month.
From butter’s price recently rising an average of 31% to bread being up 15%, year over year, according to inflation data, SNAP users like Carroll look to the legislators to help those in the community who need it most.
“I’m just hoping that the government can find a way to give people some funds back that they’ve taken away to help our community survive,” she said. “Because we’re not surviving right now. We’re just barely existing. We want to do better, but we need help.”
(WASHINGTON) — The backlash against China-owned TikTok in the U.S. and other Western countries escalated in recent days, as some U.S lawmakers pushed to give President Joe Biden the authority to impose a ban on the app for all users.
Canada banned TikTok on government-issued mobile devices on Monday, following a similar ban from the European Union last week.
TikTok, which has more than 100 million monthly active users in the U.S., has faced growing scrutiny from government officials over fears that user data could fall into the possession of the Chinese government and the app could ultimately be weaponized by China to spread misinformation.
However, the fight to ban TikTok risks imposing undue limits on free speech and private business, mimicking the type of censorship for which some Western countries have faulted China, according to some experts and civil liberties advocates.
Here’s what to know about why TikTok is being banned, and whether government officials would eventually prevent everyday users from accessing the app:
Why is TikTok being banned?
The primary concern raised by officials banning TikTok centers on data security, especially fears that user information could end up in the hands of the Chinese government.
Such concerns focus both on potential risks posed to U.S. national security, as well as business advantages afforded to Chinese companies that may gain access to the information, Aynne Kokas, professor of media studies and the director of the East Asia Center at the University of Virginia, told ABC News.
“There are significant national security concerns about Chinese firms that are gathering data in the U.S. and what they can do with that,” Kokas said. “TikTok has a lot of users.”
Companies that operate in China must comply with laws that require them to share data with the government, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at a panel event earlier this month.
“The bottom line is China has been quite clear that they are trying to mold and put forward the use and norms around technologies that privilege their interests,” she said. “There’s a reason we need to be very concerned.”
In addition, some officials have raised alarm that the Chinese government could use TikTok to spread false information, possibly influencing political discourse and election outcomes.
“There are concerns about the lack of algorithmic transparency on TikTok, and the potential for mis- and disinformation,” Kokas said.
Which countries have banned TikTok?
A slew of countries have imposed restrictions on TikTok.
In 2020, India imposed a full ban on TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps, citing data privacy and national security concerns. TikTok has faced temporary bans for all users in Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan over the spread of content deemed inappropriate by government officials.
Some countries have joined the U.S. in banning TikTok on government-issued devices. Canada and the European Union imposed such measures in recent days. Taiwan also banned the app from government devices last year.
In response to the government-device bans, TikTok told ABC News in a statement: “We appreciate that some governments have wisely chosen not to implement such bans due to a lack of evidence that there is any such need, but it’s disappointing to see that other government bodies and institutions are banning TikTok on employee devices with no deliberation or evidence.”
“We share a common goal with governments that are concerned about user privacy, but these bans are misguided and do nothing to further privacy or security,” the company added.
Will the U.S. ban TikTok entirely?
So far, restrictions of TikTok in the U.S. at the state and federal level have solely focused on banning the app from government-issued devices and currently no further bans have been put in place.
“There’s a huge amount of logic for government-device bans,” Kokas said. “It doesn’t fall victim to the same conversations about free speech because these are government-owned devices.”
The Biden administration said on Monday that it is giving federal agencies 30 days to guarantee they do not have TikTok on any federal devices.
“We’ll continue to look at other actions that we can take,” Olivia Dalton, the White House principal deputy press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday. “That includes how to work with Congress on this issue further.”
In response to the U.S. ban of the app on government-issue devices, TikTok told ABC News: “The ban of TikTok on federal devices was passed in December without any deliberation, and unfortunately that approach has served as a blueprint for other world governments. These bans are little more than political theater.”
“We hope that when it comes to addressing national security concerns about TikTok beyond government devices, Congress will explore solutions that won’t have the effect of censoring the voices of millions of Americans,” the company added.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in March about the company’s data security practices, the committee said last month.
More than half of U.S. states have taken steps toward a partial or full ban of TikTok on government devices.
Some lawmakers and advocates, however, have sought to extend the ban to all U.S. users. The House Foreign Affairs Committee is weighing a measure that would grant Biden new authority to ban TikTok.
TikTok has undergone a yearslong review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which could result in a ban of the app or a forced sale of the company’s U.S. operation.
Despite momentum among lawmakers for a full U.S. ban, the likelihood of such a move remains low, experts told ABC News. citing the dramatic intervention into the private sector that it would require. Moreover, if such a move did take place, it would face a challenge in the courts, they added.
“I’m skeptical that a ban would survive constitutional scrutiny in the U.S.,” Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University, told ABC News. “Because we have a First Amendment right to receive information, even information from adversary countries.”
In a letter to federal lawmakers on Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union voiced opposition to a full ban of TikTok.
“Congress must not censor entire platforms and strip Americans of their constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression,” said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU.
(NEW YORK) — Nishad Singh, former director of engineering at FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, agreed Tuesday to plead guilty to criminal charges, according to his lawyers and federal prosecutors in New York.
Singh agreed to plead guilty to six counts of fraud and conspiracy contained in information unsealed Tuesday, becoming the third member of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle to admit guilt and cooperate with federal prosecutors as they build a case against those believed responsible for what U.S. Attorney Damian Williams has called one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.
“Today’s guilty plea underscores once again that the crimes at FTX were vast in scope and consequence,” Williams said in a statement. “They rocked our financial markets with a multibillion dollar fraud. And they corrupted our politics with tens of millions of dollars in illegal straw campaign contributions. These crimes demand swift and certain justice and that is exactly what we are seeking in the Southern District of New York.”
Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s privately controlled hedge fund, and Gary Wang, co-founder of FTX, have also pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to assist the government’s prosecution. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to eight criminal counts and prosecutors recently added an additional four counts.
Singh contributed to the fraud that led to the $32 billion bankruptcy of FTX by providing “misleading information to auditors about FTX’s revenue,” knowing that information would be given to prospective investors, according to the information.
Singh was also part of the conspiracy to make political contributions to candidates and committees that were paid for using funds from Bankman-Fried’s privately controlled hedge fund, Alameda Research, but reported to the Federal Election Commission under different names, the information said.
“Nishad is deeply sorry for his role in this and has accepted responsibility for his actions,” Singh’s lawyers, Andrew D. Goldstein and Russell Capone, said in a statement to ABC News. “He wants to do everything he can to make things right for victims, including by assisting the government to the best of his ability in this case.”
In exchange for his cooperation, federal prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence below the 75-year maximum attached to the charges, according to the plea agreement also unsealed Tuesday.
Prosecutors agreed to Singh’s release on a $250,000 personal recognizance bond.
(BELVIDERE, Ill.) — Over a thousand automotive workers in Illinois will clock out of a Jeep assembly plant for the last time Tuesday, stopping what a local union president described as the “heartbeat” of the small city.
In December, multinational automotive giant Stellantis announced that they would be “idling” their Belvidere, Illinois, assembly plant on Feb. 28, indefinitely laying off 1,350 employees. The factory, which had served as an economic engine for the town of Belvidere since the 1960s, also spawned thousands of local jobs; according to a union official, 400 additional jobs for different companies supplying the plant have also been cut due to the factory’s idling.
“It’s like living a nightmare every day,” said Kevin Logan, the president of Belvidere-based United Auto Workers Local 1268.
Stellantis’ decision to leave Belvidere leaves many of the city’s 25,000 residents with an uncertain future, with some former employees driven to relocate to fully obtain benefits and those left behind unsure about the long-term viability of their community without the factory that served as the town’s economic anchor.
“You’re either forced to take a pay cut or uproot your entire family,” said Jeremy Snow, co-owner of an auto-repair shop in Belvidere. He later added, “I just feel like there’s definitely a million ways they could have done better, and they didn’t care.”
Stellantis, which recorded $17.8 billion in net profit in 2022, said it would idle the facility in part because of the increased cost of “the electrification of the automotive market,” in addition to the pandemic and the global microchip shortage. In a statement to ABC News, a company spokesperson said they would make “every effort to place indefinitely laid off employees in open full-time positions as they become available.”
The plant — associated with Chrysler for decades — churned out millions of vehicles, including the Dodge Dart and Chrysler New Yorker. Before its idling, the plant was most recently used to assemble the Jeep Cherokee. According to Logan, the final decision to idle the factory follows a slow bleed of layoffs in the last four years, including the loss of about 1,500 workers in 2019, 1,200 in 2021 and 500 in 2022.
Logan said the “nightmare” began on Dec. 9, when he received a phone call from a Stellantis representative who informed him that in fifteen minutes, an announcement would be made on the plant’s floor telling the employees about the fate of the factory. Since then, Logan said local management has primarily been “kept in the dark” about the factory’s future.
Logan said he was given the same reasons for the factory closure – a combination of the cost of electrification, COVID, and the chip shortage – though he said he struggles to rationalize how such a profitable company, along with the tax incentives for American manufacturing, would still decide to shutter a state-of-the-art facility.
“It really pisses me off that they’re not going to keep it here at this facility,” he said, adding. “They’re turning profits with these companies, yet they aren’t making enough profit to sustain the product here and keep people working.”
In a statement to ABC News, Stellantis said that they have not yet announced the next production location for the next-generation Jeep Cherokee; however, citing internal discussion at the factory, Logan expressed concern that production might move to Stellanti’s 1.6 million-square-foot Toluca, Mexico, assembly plant, where Jeep already produces their Compass compact SUV.
A Stellantis spokesperson said that “government regulations and societal pressure” have led to the push for electrification, which she said is 40 percent more expensive to implement.
“This means we will need to rethink and restructure our operations everywhere in the world, including in North America,” she wrote.
The decision to shutter the factory is also expected to impact suppliers in the town and region, including seven union-staffed facilities that supply tires, headliners, shocks, seats and engines, as well as clean facilities and transport cars. Across these facilities, Logan cited an additional 400 layoffs.
A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity said the state government is working to assist furloughed workers and identify new opportunities for the Belvidere plant. Stellantis could not provide any details about plans to repurpose the facility.
While the town has other employment opportunities, such as a large General Mills facility, the Stellantis plant’s loss leaves employees and residents with an unstable future, local business owners said.
Some employees could move to another Stellantis plant in neighboring states so they can complete the years of work required to obtain full benefits, as those opportunities become available. The move comes with a relocation bonus, Logan said. But, for many, the prospect of moving their family is a high cost, Snow said.
“Can you imagine an option where you’ve worked for a company for, let’s say, 17, 18 years, when you’re two years away from a pension … and your only option to keep your pension is to move to Toledo, Ohio, 600 miles away, to try to just keep your job,” Snow said.
Snow also cited concerns about property values, arguing that many people originally moved to Belvidere because of the plant. He added that residents have been more reluctant to spend money following the announcement.
“If nothing else, we’re losing long-term relationships with clients because they’ve got to move out of state to find work,” said Joe Santiago, another Belvidere small business owner.
When looking for someone to blame for the plant’s demise, some look directly at Stellantis.
“It feels like we had oil underneath the town, and now the oil is gone, so now they’ve just gonna leave their equipment and leave,” Snow said. “And that’s sort of what it feels like, they’ve drained us, they’re done with us, they don’t care what happens to our market, our families, our children, our schools.”
However, Santiago pointed more toward the high taxes in Illinois, the influence of unions, and the lack of overall business competitiveness in the state, though he added that Stellantis’ moves over the last year have been “haphazard, to say the least.”
“I hear more people who want to move out of state than I see people wanting to come to Illinois to work, which is unfortunate,” he said.
The plant’s closure may serve to further weaken the concept among locals that members of the working class, many of whom don’t have specialized training or a college degree, could rely on a stable manufacturing job as a gateway to a stable life.
“When you grew up in a plant town or around the plant town, everybody always says, ‘Man, if you can get into there, you’re set for life,'” Snow said.
(NEW YORK) — Prepackaged shrimp that was distributed to retailers across four states has been recalled due to a possible health risk.
Kawasho Foods USA Inc. initiatied a voluntary recall of its 4-ounce canned GEISHA Medium Shrimp on Sunday over reports of “swelling, leaking, or bursting cans,” according to an announcement posted on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website.
“There is a possibility that the product has been under processed, which could lead to the potential for spoilage organisms or pathogens,” the New York based food manufacturer said in its announcement.
The affected products are marked with the UPC number 071140003909 and were distributed in California, Utah, Arizona and Colorado, according to the company. The products were sold at Walmart, Associated Food Stores, Stater Bros Markets, Safeway and Albertsons.
The recalled product lot number is LGC12W12E22 and the “best by” code date, found on the bottom of the can is “MAY/12/2026,” according to the recall announcement.
Kawasho Foods USA Inc. urged consumers on Sunday not to use this product, “even if it does not look or smell spoiled.”
As of the time of publication, no illnesses or other adverse consequences have been reported in connection with the recall.
Shoppers who may have purchased the canned shrimp are urged to return the product to the place of purchase for a full refund.
(NEW YORK) — Airlines around the world are changing flight schedules for thousands of upcoming summer flights.
If you’ve already booked a flight for May, June, July or August, there is a chance your departure time or day of travel has changed.
Airlines publish schedules about a year out from departure and as the flight date gets closer, airlines often need to change the departure time or scrap the flight altogether. Since travel rebounded following COVID-19 lockdowns, airlines have struggled to accurately predict demand.
Before the pandemic, airlines used historical data and trends to make flight schedules. As travel trends and days of travel have radically shifted in the post-lockdown era, it has become much more difficult to accurately predict exactly where and when travelers will want to go.
“For flights 100 plus days in advance, airlines are using new tools and more up-to-date information to help them schedule flights as efficiently as possible. They are looking at the future demand curves — the volume of passengers purchasing certain flights — to help them understand where the demand is, where passengers want to go,” Jeff Pelletier, managing director of Airline Data Inc. explained to ABC News. “Higher-demand destinations may see increases in flight frequency or larger aircraft that are being reallocated from other destinations that may be seeing softer demand.”
Oftentimes, the schedule change might only be a few minutes, but in many cases it could be hours. In the most extreme situations, your flight could change to a new day. That extreme scenario is rare and will likely only happen on a foreign carrier with limited flights or a low-cost carrier that doesn’t service a particular city every day.
American Airlines has changed or cut roughly 60,000 flights between May 1 and Sept. 1, the most of all the major carriers, according to Airline Data Inc.
“By doing this, they are aiming to provide the ‘right number’ of seats at a price that is as attractive as possible to the traveling public. This is to try and avoid selling out flights completely in high-demand markets and sending out half-empty planes in low demand markets,” Pelletier said.
Flight changes can work to the advantage of passengers. If an airline makes a significant change to your flight and you find a more convenient flight like a nonstop on the same airline, you can usually switch to the better flight free of charge.
Experts recommend downloading your airline’s app and regularly checking your itinerary to see if anything has changed. Oftentimes, airlines will notify passengers of changes, though not all the time.
(NEW YORK) — JP Morgan Chase faced new accusations from Charlie Javice, the young entrepreneur behind the student financial aid startup Frank, which the bank acquired in a $175 million transaction chief executive Jamie Dimon has since called “a huge mistake.”
Javice fired back on Monday, formally denying the bank’s fraud allegations and accusing JP Morgan of trying “to shift the blame for a failed and now-regretted acquisition to someone they view as an easy target: its young female founder.”
JP Morgan sued Javice in December alleging she “decided to lie” about how many customers Frank actually had and how successful it actually was in order to convince the bank to pay such a high price.
According to the lawsuit, Javice claimed more than 4.25 million students had created accounts to apply for federal student aid using Frank’s application tool. When the bank sought proof, the lawsuit claimed Javice fabricated a list of fake customers who did not actually exist.
“In reality, Frank was nearly 4 million short of its representations to JPMC,” the complaint said.
Javice has denied fabricating customer lists of knowingly submitting material false information. In her counterclaim, she called it “implausible” JP Morgan was led to believe Frank had 4.25 million registered users when its website publicly claimed the company had helped more than 350,000 people access financial aid.
The counterclaim also alleges that due diligence materials and readily available valuation data show the sophisticated bank could not have been misled about the value of the business.
“No one wanted to be held accountable,” Javice’s counterclaim filing said. “They needed someone else to point the finger at. And they found that person in Ms. Javice: an outsider whose youth and lack of institutional longevity made her an easy target.”
The counterclaim also alleges that, after changes in student aid rules made the business less viable, JP Morgan initiated pretextual investigations into her conduct and wrongly used false claims to terminate her for cause on the eve of the date on which she was due a significant payment under the terms of the acquisition deal.
Questioned about the Frank deal during an earnings call last month JP Morgan’s chief, Jamie Dimon, conceded it was “a huge mistake” but declined to elaborate during the ongoing lawsuit.
“I’ll tell you the lessons learned here when this thing is out of litigation,” Dimon said on the call.
JP Morgan accused Javice of enlisting a data science professor to fabricate a customer account list, an allegation she denied.
“JPMC cannot prove its outlandish claims, and Ms. Javice is confident she will prevail in this litigation. In the meantime, however, JPMC has compromised her reputation and wrongfully withheld $20 million in retention payments and approximately $7.9 million in an equity hold out from the Merger Agreement,” her filing said.
(NEW YORK) — Deanna Hardy of Marshfield, Wisconsin, is stocking up on pricier food items like meat, eggs and salmon before her family’s monthly food stamp benefits are drastically reduced.
“We’re really going to struggle,” the mom of two told ABC News. “We’re going to have to end up going back to cheaper items like noodles and processed stuff because the meat, the dairy, fruits and veggies. It’s expensive.”
Hardy is one of nearly 30 million Americans bracing for a significant cut in their monthly food assistance. After nearly three years, the federal government is ending pandemic-era payments on March 1 for low-income families on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Eighteen states have already ended the extra SNAP benefits, impacting some 12 million Americans. The remaining 32 states and the jurisdictions of Washington, D.C., Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands follow suit on March 1.
The average household will lose $95 a month for groceries, according to a study from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Depending on other factors, including family size and income, some recipients will lose hundreds of dollars a month in food assistance.
Hardy and her husband Ben are both on disability and rely on a fixed-income to provide for their two young sons. After the special benefit allotment goes away, the Hardys’ monthly SNAP benefit will plummet from $960 to $200 a month.
“I don’t think the cuts could have happened at a worse time,” Deanna Hardy said. “When the extra payments began, food prices were nowhere near where they are now.”
The elimination of the extra SNAP benefits comes as wages fail to keep up with stubbornly high inflation. Food prices alone are up 10.1% from a year ago, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with staples like butter up 31% and breakfast cereals and bread each up 15%.
The boost in benefits has been a lifeline for many Americans and is credited with keeping 4.2 million people out of poverty since the fourth quarter of 2021, according to a study from the Urban Institute.
The extra money was always temporary and intended to stop once the Biden administration declared an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, which it plans to do in May. Congress traded the extra “temporary” benefits for a new “permanent” program to replace school meals during the summer for low-income families.
The cuts are putting a strain on families like Jamillah Smith and her 9-year-old niece. Already struggling to make ends meet in Charlotte, North Carolina, they will now have $250 less to spend on groceries each month.
“It’s going to send me probably to a food pantry a couple of times a month. There’s going to be a lot of coupon cutting going on, a lot of food saving apps or grocery store apps,” Smith said.
Food banks across the country are now racing to meet increased demand and fill the gap created by the elimination of the extra benefits. The Atlanta Community Food Bank, which serves 600,000 people in 29 counties, has seen a 30% increase in visits since Georgia ended the extra SNAP benefits in May.
“Many of those folks are accessing our network for the first time in their lives. That’s because they’re facing economic challenges that they just haven’t faced before,” said Kyle Waide, president and CEO of the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
He said his food bank is now spending a record $2 million a month to provide for its clients and is asking lawmakers to make the SNAP program more “robust.”
Deanna Hardy said she worries about the future.
“If prices keep going the way they’re going and we can’t even make it work now, what is it going to be like six months from now?” she said.
Some SNAP recipients are appealing to their states to fill the gap from the loss in federal funding. So far, only New Jersey has agreed to extend the extra SNAP benefits.
(NEW YORK) — The job market is booming, despite headline-grabbing layoffs at tech behemoths like Amazon and Google.
As illustrated by that contrast in fortunes, however, the hiring surge hasn’t been distributed equally. For waiters and bartenders, job boards are lighting up; for computer programmers, they’re relatively dim.
The strong job market stems from an easing of pandemic fears among consumers and workers alike, allowing employers in person-to-person industries to meet growing demand with the expanded payrolls necessary to serve it, experts and business owners told ABC News.
The growth should continue in sectors like leisure and hospitality as well as health care, since they have yet to catch up to where employment stood before the pandemic or where growth would have sent employment if not for the coronavirus interruption, the experts and business owners added.
“It’s really in-person services that are the strength of the U.S. labor market right now,” Nick Bunker, head of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told ABC News. “The areas of the economy that got hit really hard by the initial shock of the pandemic.”
“We’re seeing a rebalancing of the economy back toward them,” he added. “That’s where most of the momentum is.”
Here’s which jobs are growing the most and why:
Leisure and hospitality
The economy added a staggering 517,000 jobs last month, well above the breakneck pace of some 400,000 monthly jobs added on average last year, according to government data.
Nearly a quarter of the new jobs last month came in leisure and hospitality, making the current hottest job sector a category that comprises restaurants, bars and hotels, among other related businesses.
The surge in hiring in the leisure and hospitality industry owes to a growing shift among consumers back toward a pre-pandemic lifestyle of traveling, eating out and attending events, Wayne Cascio, an industrial-organizational psychologist at the University of Colorado, told ABC News.
“People were stuck for so long during the pandemic and there’s this pent up demand,” Cascio said. “That demand is fueling employers’ needs to hire more people.”
Alongside heightened demand, the industry has benefited from workers willing to take jobs that previously posed a grave health threat when the pandemic was raging, he added.
“People didn’t want to get into hospitality and serving customers because of the possible exposure to the virus,” Cascio said.
Juiceland, a chain of 33 smoothie shops in Texas with 600 employees, hired more than a quarter of those workers over the past month as the company ramps up for higher demand in the spring and summer, CEO Matt Shook told ABC News.
However, the seasonal surge makes up only part of the story, he added, noting that sales have soared about 20% compared to the same period last year, in part because the return of many office workers has helped business recover at stores in metropolitan downtown areas.
“We’re seeing more traffic these days,” Shook said. “We’re back to being busy for sure.”
Helping Juiceland stand out in a tight job market, the company guarantees entry-level pay of $15 per hour, including tips, and provides every employee with at least three days of paid time off annually as well as an $11 store credit each day, Shook said.
“Some of our best new hires are our regular customers,” he added.
Meanwhile, in response to a spike in travel, the accommodations sector added 15,000 jobs last month, government data showed.
Still, nearly 80% of hotels say they’re facing a staffing shortage, according to a survey released on Monday by the American Hotel and Lodging Association, which found that the position in highest demand is housekeeping.
Health care
The health care industry has marked another major source of job increases, especially ambulance and nursing home workers, government data last month showed. Overall, the sector accounted for more than 10% of the jobs added last month.
The hiring bump in the industry arrives at the convergence of a long-term rise in health care employment as well as a short-term recovery after a pandemic drawdown in some jobs, said Bunker, of the Indeed Hiring Lab.
While the pandemic brought heightened demand for jobs directly related to the coronavirus fight, it caused a drop in health care employment in areas without direct connection to the outbreak, Bunker said.
The number of employees nationwide in nursing homes and other facilities fell by about 410,000 between February 2020 and November 2021, a Wisconsin Watch analysis of government data showed. Since then, the industry has only recovered about 103,000 jobs, according to the data.
“Some people might say, ‘How does that sector of all sectors lose jobs during the pandemic?'” Bunker said. “Health care services that are not directly related to pandemic care ended due to the pandemic itself.”
Meanwhile, as the baby boom generation has aged in recent years, a greater share of the U.S. population has risen above the age of 65, in turn requiring more medical care. Currently, nearly 17% of the U.S. population is of retirement age; by 2030, that share is expected to reach 20%, according to the United Health Foundation.
“The demographics are baked in here,” Bunker said. “This will continue to fuel strong growth in the health care sector.”
Retail
The pandemic-induced rise of e-commerce brought a rise in warehouse employment and a decline in retail workers — but the retail sector has rebounded lately.
The sector added 30,000 jobs last month, including more than half of those at general merchandise retailers, government data showed.
Twin Liquors, a Texas-based chain of about 100 liquor stores, has had a much easier time hiring and retaining workers this year than it did during the early months of 2022, David Jabour, the company’s president, told ABC News.
Last year it took about a month to fill an open position, while this year it has taken about half as long, Jabour said. Meanwhile, the company has retained 50% of seasonal workers brought in during the peak holiday season as permanent employees, an unusually large share, he added.
After the outbreak of the coronavirus, the company avoided job cuts that pummeled much of the retail sector, Jabour said, noting that Twin Liquors had grown its employees throughout the pandemic.
He said he expects that hiring to continue, despite evidence that U.S. consumption has weakened in recent months.
“The consumer will continue to spend,” he said. “They may spend a little less on that bottle of single malt scotch or tequila.”
