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Skipping meals and racking up debt. How inflation is squeezing single parents

2022-05-11T01:53:10.118Z


For these families, whose finances often have little or no wiggle room, inflation is adding to the financial strain.


Fed: New increase in interest rates seeks to control inflation 1:18

San Francisco (CNN Business) --

Now that daily life is the most expensive in 40 years, single parents say they are running out of options to cut costs.

The price of groceries, gasoline, rent, and utilities have all gone up over the last year;

But wages haven't kept up, with more than half of single parents earning less than $15 an hour, according to recent Oxfam research.

  • How to beat inflation: buy what you already know... and what you eat

That's caused many single parents to skip meals so their kids have enough to eat, providing less healthy meals for their families and cutting corners to the point where any unexpected costs could mean more debt, or worse.

For these families, whose finances often have little or no wiggle room, inflation—along with the end of federal aid—such as early child tax credit payments, is adding to the financial strain.

"It's a really tricky game to figure out what I can do, what I can't do and how I can squeeze a little more money here and there," said Elisabeth Mendes Saigg, 33, whose husband died of sudden heart failure in 2020 at the age of 37 years old.

Mendes Saigg was left alone to raise her two-year-old son, Khayonni.

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Elisabeth Mendes Saigg and her son, Khayonni.

For a time after her husband's death, she received food stamps to help with grocery costs, but after she was able to start working again — teaching high school biology — she was no longer eligible.

Her annual income of $25,000 will also soon make her ineligible for the spousal death benefits she received from Social Security.

Between the loss of survivor benefits and nutritional assistance, the Fort Pierce, Fla., mother will have $700 less available per month this year than she did last year.

She says she's cut back on every aspect of her daily life: she'll keep the air conditioner warmer to help ease her energy bill (forgoing the luxury of a cool house on hot Florida days), she can no longer enroll her son in gym, has taken on an additional tutoring role at work, and has made one box of pasta enough for four meals for her so that Khayonni, now three and a half, can enjoy her sausages and favorite salads.

Living paycheck to paycheck

In March, about 30% of single parents surveyed by Morning Consult said their household finances were worse than average, compared to just over 22% of all adults.

During the 12-month period ending March 2022, single-parent households say they earned about 16% less than adults overall per month and spent about 8% less per month, according to Morning Consult data.

While adults in general consistently report a strong gap between average monthly spending and income, single parents have a much smaller gap, said John Leer, chief economist at Morning Consult.

"If there are no variables in our month, nobody has to go to the doctor, nobody has to go to the dentist... then all my bills are paid with less than $100 left over each month. If there is a variable that something goes wrong , so something is always paid late," said Shae Beery, a 44-year-old Nashville, Tennessee, resident who has single-handedly raised her son Kingston, now 10.

Jessica Ridout and her two children have adopted a more vegetarian diet due to rising food prices.

When prices start to rise, single-parent families have less ability to cut back further, so they buy less food at the supermarket and end up spending more on their credit cards.

Over the past three months, more of those balances have gone unpaid, Leer said.

"Month to month, single parents don't really have a lot of extra space to help cover costs," he told CNN Business.

"They really live paycheck to paycheck. They take their income and immediately divert it to expenses, which means they don't have savings to cover any unforeseen storm."

In Brooklyn, New York, Jessica Ridout, 41, and her two children, ages 8 and 10, have adapted to a more vegetarian diet due to rising prices at the supermarket.

Before the pandemic, Ridout spent $50 to $75 a week on food.

That weekly bill is now $100 to $125, she said.

Items like sparkling water, candy, junk food and, lately, meat are no longer included in the basket.

"Meat is expensive, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I wouldn't kill for a good piece of salmon once a week," he said.

But she can't justify indulging in a $17 piece of salmon when she can use vegetables to pack two weeks' worth of lunches for that cost, she said.

Belt-fitting isn't just at the grocery store.

A couple of weeks ago, Ridout's car started smoking.

After sending a video to a friend, the probable cause was determined to be an oil leak.

Instead of taking it to a mechanic, he went to AutoZone, spent $14 on an additive to seal oil leaks, and crossed his fingers.

Fears of a recession

As the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve seek to address rising prices, families are bracing for the possibility of a recession — and higher interest rates — as part of that solution.

Key inflation data due this week, including the latest consumer price index data on Wednesday, will likely provide a further indication that high costs are not going away any time soon.

That is pushing the US Federal Reserve (Fed) to keep raising its benchmark interest rate in an attempt to cool down the economy.

But while that may reduce consumer demand, it will also increase the cost of borrowing, hitting families who rely more on credit cards or other loans to get by each month more.

"The likelihood that we will experience a further recession is increasing at the moment, which is likely to expose some of the most vulnerable households," Morning Consult's Leer said.

Volunteers and members of the Contra Costa and Solano County Food Bank help distribute food to people in need.

The food bank has seen demand rise in recent months amid higher inflation.

The pandemic has already pushed the United States toward higher rates of food insecurity, a trend that has only accelerated with the recent rise in inflation: In March, nearly two-thirds of Feeding America's 200 food banks reported an increase in the demand for food assistance.

Since the start of the pandemic, the Contra Costa and Solano County Food Bank in the East Bay of Northern California has seen a 40% to 60% increase in its customer base, from 178,000 people per month to a maximum of 300,000 clients a month, said Cassidie ​​Bates, manager of government and public affairs for the food bank.

He has also seen an increase in the number of customers coming to the food bank, including people who have never experienced food insecurity before.

"One bad month is enough to set some people back," he said, adding that he expects the surge in demand to hold for at least the next few years.

"When people fall into food insecurity and poverty, it's very cyclical, hard to get out of and hard to recover from," he said.

JR Young, 68, of Colorado Springs, Colo., is raising his 17-year-old granddaughter on a fixed income.

Living with a disability for 32 years and on a fixed income, JR Young, 68, of Colorado Springs, Colo., has plenty of experience making every dollar count, something made easier with the support of his wife when they raised her granddaughter, who is now 17 years old.

But after Young's wife passed away in March 2021, meeting those monthly expenses became increasingly challenging, especially as prices began to rise.

Canned and frozen foods have now replaced fruits and vegetables;

the roast beef he buys for his granddaughter is up 33%;

and the end of the month usually means Young has no fresh milk in the house and survives solely on peanut butter sandwiches.

"It's just down to the wire at the end of the month," he said.

"I'm monitoring my portions, monitoring slices of bread, monitoring sticks of butter just to be sure."

Inflation

Source: cnnespanol

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