How Disabilities are Tied to Food Insecurity

People with disabilities have high rates of food insecurity because they earn less or can’t work at all. Add to that their unusually large expenses for health care and assistive equipment like wheelchairs and special computers. But the roots of food insecurity run deeper than just the financial constraints. Even middle-income people with disabilities are more food insecure, which the USDA defines as either deficiencies in nutrition or not having enough to eat. Part of the problem is where they tend to live, according to a new Urban Institute study. Counties with unusually large disability populations have fewer places to shop for groceries and an oversupply of fast food restaurants, convenience stores, and small grocery stores with limited shelf space. Snack foods and sweet beverages are abundant in these establishments but the selection of fruits, vegetables and lean meats is limited. A shortage of stores that sell healthy food is…

Originally Published on https://squaredawayblog.bc.edu/

Kim Blanton Squared Away Blog Writer

I’m a veteran financial and economics reporter, most recently for The Boston Globe, who has also written for The Economist and other publications. I uncovered scandals during the savings and loan crisis in Texas back in the late 1980s, trekked around the world to cover finance and economics in the 1990s, and ventured into Boston neighborhoods to cover the recent subprime mortgage crisis.

While covering subprime mortgages, I began to see the importance of financial behavior and literacy. Wall Street excesses certainly fueled the crisis, but a poor understanding of complex financial products also played a major role. I interviewed dozens of homeowners in the grip of foreclosure who had agreed to home loans that they did not understand and that their brokers did not or could not explain to them. The consequences for these individuals – and the country – were disastrous.

I use the same dogged reporting skills to cover financial issues of growing importance today, including the personal crisis that concerns millions of baby boomers: Retirement.