Tracking the COVID-19 Economy’s Effects on Food, Housing, and Employment Hardships

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic fallout caused significant hardship. In the early months of the crisis, tens of millions of people lost their jobs. While employment began to rebound within a few months, unemployment remained high throughout 2020. Improving employment and substantial relief measures helped reduce the very high levels of hardship seen in the summer of 2020. Nonetheless, considerable unmet need remained near the end of 2021, with 20 million households reporting having too little to eat in the past seven days and 10 million households behind on rent. In early 2022, some 3 million fewer people are employed than before the pandemic, though steady progress has been made, including in recent months.

Hardship in 2020 and 2021 would have been far worse without extraordinary steps taken by the federal government, states, and localities to respond to the pandemic and its economic fallout. Key hardship indicators showed strong improvement during early 2021, aided by job growth and government benefits. Hardship rates fell especially fast after the enactment of the American Rescue Plan Act on March 11, 2021, which included $1,400 payments for most Americans as well as other assistance to struggling households. (See Figure 1.) Food hardship among adults with children also fell after the federal government began issuing monthly payments of the expanded Child Tax Credit on July 15, 2021, along with improvements in food assistance.