This article draws upon our perspective as academic-practitioners working in the fields of food insecurity, food systems, and inequality to comment, in the early stages of the pandemic and associated lockdown, on the empirical and ethical implications of COVID-19 for socio-economic inequalities in access to food in the UK. The COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened the profound insecurity of large segments of the UK population, an insecurity itself the product of a decade of ‘austerity’ policies. Increased unemployment, reduced hours, and enforced self-isolation for multiple vulnerable groups is likely to lead to an increase in UK food insecurity, exacerbating diet-related health inequalities. The social and economic crisis associated with the pandemic has exposed the fragility of the system of food charity which, at present, is a key response to growing poverty. A vulnerable food system, with just-in-time supply chains, has been challenged by stockpiling. Resultant food supply issues at food banks, alongside rapidly increasing demand and reduced volunteer numbers, has undermined many food charities, especially independent food banks. In the light of this analysis, we make a series of recommendations. We call for an immediate end to the five week wait for Universal Credit and cash grants for low income households. We ask central and local government to recognise that many food aid providers are already at capacity and unable to adopt additional responsibilities. The government’s - significant - response to the economic crisis associated with COVID-19 has underscored a key principle: it is the government’s responsibility to protect population health, to guarantee household incomes, and to safeguard the economy. Millions of households were in poverty before the pandemic, and millions more will be so unless the government continues to protect household incomes through policy change.
This review analyses the time-series evidence of the effects of changing income inequality on crime for a number of countries and types of crime. 17 papers analysing this relationship using time-series evidence were found via a systematic search. The papers' findings on the relationship between inequality and crime were classified as providing evidence of Significant Positive Associations, No Significant Associations, or Significant Negative Associations. The analysis indicated that property crime increases with rising income inequality and specific measures of violent crime, such as homicide and robbery, also display sensitivity to income inequality over time. Aggregated non-specific measures of violent crime, however, do not display such sensitivity, which is most likely to be due to differences in crime reporting. The majority of the differences in the findings can be explained by the choice of covariates, and the estimators and measures used in the paper. The paper concludes with a unified interpretation of the time-series evidence.
This paper derives from a study of community food aid in a multi-ethnic, multi-faith city in the North of England. The paper begins to make sense of the diversity of types of food insecurity assistance, examines the potential exclusion of certain groups from receipt of food aid, and explores the relationship between food aid providers and the state. Faithbased food aid is common in the case study area, particularly among food bank provision to the most 'destitute' clients. While food aid is adopting service responsibilities previously borne by the state, this does not imply an extension of the 'shadow state'. Rather, it appears reflective of a pre-welfare state system of food distribution, supported by religious institutions and individual/business philanthropy, but adapted to be consistent with elements of the 'Big Society' narrative. Most faith-based providers are Christian. There is little Muslim provision of (or utilisation of) food aid, despite the local demographic context. This raises concerns as to the unintentional exclusion of ethnic and religious groups, which we discuss in the concluding sections.
This article draws upon our unique perspective as academic-practitioners working in the fields of food insecurity, food systems, and inequality to comment on the empirical and ethical implications of Covid-19 for socio-economic inequalities in access to food in the UK. The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the profound insecurity of large segments of the UK population; increased unemployment, reduced hours, and enforced self-isolation for multiple vulnerable groups is likely to lead to an increase in UK food insecurity, exacerbating diet-related health inequalities. The social and economic crisis associated with the pandemic has exposed the fragility of the system of food charity which, at present, is a key response to growing poverty. A vulnerable food system, with just-in-time supply chains, has been challenged by stockpiling. Resultant food supply issues at food banks, alongside rapidly increasing demand and reduced volunteer numbers, has undermined many food charities, especially independent food banks. In the light of this analysis, we make a series of recommendations for social security policy, ‘emergency’ food provision, and retailers. We call for an immediate end to the five week wait for Universal Credit and cash grants for low income households. We ask central and local government to recognise that many food aid providers are already at capacity and unable to adopt additional responsibilities. We urge supermarkets to commit to paying their employees the Real Living Wage to mitigate against food insecurity amongst their staff now and in the future. The government’s -- impressive -- response to the economic crisis associated with Covid-19 has underscored a key principle: it is the government’s responsibility to protect population health, to guarantee household incomes, and to safeguard the economy. Millions of households were in poverty before the pandemic, and millions more will be so unless the government continues to protect household incomes through policy change.
The finding that food insecurity prevalence may be higher than previously thought and that food insecurity is highly associated with socio-economic status, notably benefit receipt, is a cause for concern necessitating an urgent policy response.
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