Pandemic Financial Relief Policies Coincided with Decreased Family Economic Hardships

Since April 2020, RAPID has been asking families with young children about their economic circumstances. Over the last three years, we’ve heard from more than 17,000 parents across the US. This fact sheet summarizes the rates of overall material hardship, housing related hardship, and hunger, and those rates are set alongside the timelines in which several federal policies designed to reduce economic hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic were in action.

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Hardship declined when economic stimulus and supports were in place

In April 2020, 32% of households with young children reported difficulty paying for at least one basic need (e.g., housing, food, utilities). The overall rate of hardship continued to increase in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and peaked at 37% in September 2020. As federal policies such as expanded unemployment benefits were put in place and federal stimulus checks began to reach Americans, RAPID data show a decline in the overall rates of hardship among families with young children. In December 2020, 36% of households were experiencing material hardship. From December 2020 to April 2021, when economic supports were in place, this rate dropped thirteen points, to 23% of households.

Similarly, RAPID data show that expansion of the Earned-Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit payments stabilized hardship rates around 23–27% between July and December 2021.

RAPID data show that as these pandemic- era economic policies and supports began to expire, there was a dramatic spike in overall experiences of hardship among families with young children. In January 2022, 26% of households reported difficulty paying for basic needs. By December 2022, when most of the COVID-related economic supports had expired and families were experiencing steadily increasing cost of living, the hardship rate peaked to an all-time high of 47% of households with young children.

Housing hardship was lowest when layered policies were in place

In April 2020, 19% of households with young children reported they were experiencing difficulty paying for housing. This includes both those who rented and who paid a mortgage. Between April 2020 and February 2021, this rate of hardship remained relatively stable between 16–19%. This period of relatively stable rates of housing hardship coincides with a federal moratorium on foreclosures, which was put in place in March 2020, and a moratorium on evictions that followed in September 2020.

Housing related hardship stabilized at a new low rate of 10–13% between March 2021 and June 2022, a period in which there were many layered policies to support families with high cost of housing, including moratoria on evictions and foreclosures, housing vouchers, and the Treasury Department’s rental assistance program.

In the second half of 2022, the rate of housing hardship increased and remained at the high levels first seen in the early months of the pandemic. In July 2022, 21% of households reported housing hardship, an eight percentage point increase from June 2022. This trend corresponds to rising costs of living expenses, and the end of the federal moratoria on evictions and foreclosures in August 2021.

Lowest rate of food hardship coincides with numerous federal programs and policies

Between April and December 2020, 13–19% of parents with young children reported difficulty paying for food. Over the course of 2021, between 9–15% of households reported difficulty paying for food. This decline in 2021 coincides with the implementation of several federal policies related to unemployment, the advanced monthly Child Tax Credit payments, as well as numerous food-related policies, such as expanded SNAP and WIC benefits, paused work requirements for food benefits, and universal free school meals.

As with overall hardship and housing hardship, by January 2022, the RAPID data show that households with young children were again having more difficulty paying for food. The rate of difficulty paying for food increased by more than eighteen percentage points, from 14% in April 2022 to 32% in July 2022.

Notably, this increase in difficulty paying for food in 2022 coincides with the coincides with the end of free school lunches for school-aged children in June 2022.

Summary

RAPID survey data has consistently revealed evidence of a chain reaction of hardship, in which material hardship is directly associated with an increase in parents’ emotional distress which is, in turn, associated with an increase in child emotional distress. There is also extensive evidence of the links between experiences of early adversity and poorer outcomes in terms of health, education, well-being, and income later in life.

Data from the RAPID survey and other sources have found that the monthly Child Tax Credit payments buffered families from material hardship and that that effect was most pronounced among lower-income households. Supporting households with young children to consistently meet their basic needs is associated with both improved economic circumstances and improved adult and child emotional well-being. Furthermore, thousands of parents over three years have shared in their own words with the RAPID survey how essential these pandemic-era policies were to helping them make ends meet.