Cash transfer in the Covid-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean

Este artigo apresenta resultados parciais de uma investigação em desenvolvimento por pesquisadores de universidades brasileiras, argentinas e uruguaias. Os programas de transferência de renda são vistos como medidas sociais para mitigar a pobreza, bem como para diminuir o aumento do desemprego, do trabalho informal e do desperdício de renda. A metodologia de pesquisa foram estudos bibliográficos e documentais;dados secundários;acesso a sites e dados da Comissão Econômica para a América Latina e o Caribe. A discussão enfoca concepções, modalidades e o debate sobre Programas Focalizados de Transferência de Renda e Renda Básica Universal como referência para discutir a realidade dos programas de transferência de renda na América Latina e Caribe. Os resultados apontaram para a ampliação dos programas focalizados de transferência de renda;criação de programas emergenciais para atender as consequências econômicas e sociais geradas pela pandemia de Covid-19, mas não foi identificada a implementação da Renda Básica Universal e Incondicional.Alternate :Este artículo presenta resultados parciales de una investigación en desarrollo por investigadores de universidades brasileñas, argentinas y uruguayas. Los programas de transferencias monetarias son vistos como medidas sociales para mitigar la pobreza, así como para disminuir el aumento del desempleo, el trabajo informal y el desperdicio de ingresos. La metodología de investigación fueron estudios bibliográficos y documentales;Datos secundarios;acceso a sitios web y datos de la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe. La discusión se centra en las concepciones, modalidades y el debate sobre los Programas de Transferencias Monetarias Focalizadas y la Renta Básica Universal como referencia para discutir la realidad de los programas de transferencias monetarias en América Latina y el Caribe. Los resultados señalaron la ampliación de los programas de transferencias monetarias focalizadas;creación de programas de emergencia para atender las consecuencias económicas y sociales generadas por la pandemia del Covid-19, pero no se identificó la implementación de la Renta Básica Universal e Incondicional.Alternate :This article presents partial results of an investigation under development by researchers at Brazilian, Argentine and Uruguayan Universities. The cash transfer programs are seen as social measures to mitigate poverty, as well as to decrease the rise of unemployment, informal work and waste of income. The research methodology were bibliographic and documental studies;secondary data;access to websites and data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The discuss focus on conceptions, modalities and the debate on Focalized Cash Transfer Programs and Universal Basic Income as reference to discuss the reality of cash transfer programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. The outcomes pointed out the enlargement of the focalized cash transfer programs;creation of emergence programs to meet the economic and social consequences generated by the Covid-19 pandemic, but it was not identified the implementation of the Universal and Unconditional Basic Income.

No Calm Before the Storm: Low-Income Latina Immigrant and Citizen Mothers Before and After COVID-19

Government pandemic provisions occurred alongside a safety net that excludes or dissuades Latina mothers from participation. These families are also disproportionately exposed to punitive immigration policies and rhetoric that may shape their views on such provisions and, in turn, influence their post-pandemic well-being. To understand these complexities, we draw on interviews before and after COVID-19 with thirty-eight Latina immigrant and citizen mothers, most of whom are undocumented (N = 29). We find that pre-pandemic distrust of public institutions and the safety net was common, increased after COVID-19, and negatively affected undocumented respondents' post-pandemic circumstances relative to that of citizen mothers. Findings suggest that safety net expansion on its own will not offset pandemic effects for these families without addressing exclusion from public benefits and alienation from and distrust of government.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Older Latino Immigrants

This article examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latino immigrants age sixty and older from Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. Based on 178 interviews with immigrants in Florida and Massachusetts, this study identifies the financial and health hardships they endured, the kinds of government and nonprofit aid they accessed, the factors keeping many from accessing aid, and the coping strategies they adopted. Respondents faced unemployment, hunger, and loss of income. Unauthorized immigrants and people in mixed-status families were deliberately excluded from federal aid. Many other immigrants who qualified were reluctant or refused it. Immigrants without legal status and those who had more recently arrived were the most severely affected. Individuals and families responded to these challenges by doubling up, going without food and medicine, and working while sick. Greater outreach and more humane public policies could have prevented much of this suffering.

Suffering, the Safety Net, and Disparities During COVID-19

The economic and public health crisis caused by COVID-19 was devastating and disproportionately hurt Blacks and Hispanics and some other groups. Unemployment rates and other measures of material hardship were higher and increased more during the crisis among Blacks and Hispanics than among non-Hispanic Whites. Congress authorized a historic policy response, incorporating both targeted and universal supports, and expanding both the level and duration of benefits. This response yielded the remarkable result of an estimated decline in the Supplemental Poverty Measure between 2019 and 2020. We study administrative data to investigate the impact of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the crisis. We find that participation in SNAP increased more in counties that experienced a larger employment shock. By contrast, the increase in total SNAP benefits was inversely related to the employment shock. The SNAP benefit increases were less generous to Black and Hispanic SNAP participants than to White.

Two Years Later: How COVID-19 Has Shaped the Teacher Workforce

The unprecedented challenges of teaching during COVID-19 prompted fears of a mass exodus from the profession. We examine the extent to which these fears were realized using administrative records of Massachusetts teachers between 2015–2016 and 2021–2022. Relative to prepandemic levels, average turnover rates were similar going into the fall of 2020 but increased by 17% (from 15.0% to 17.5%) going into the fall of 2021. The fall 2021 increases were particularly high among newly hired teachers (31% increase) but were lower among Black and Hispanic/Latinx teachers (5% increases among both groups). Gaps in turnover rates between schools serving higher and lower concentrations of economically disadvantaged students narrowed during the first 18 months of the pandemic. The same holds true for gaps in turnover between schools serving higher and lower shares of Black and Hispanic/Latinx students. Together, these findings highlight important differences in teachers' responses to the pandemic across subgroups and the need to improve early-career retention to ensure long-term stability within the teacher workforce.

Latino-Targeted Misinformation and the Power of Factual Corrections

Do individual, interpersonal, or institutional factors condition the effects of misinformation on beliefs? Can interventions such as fact checks stem the tide of the "infodemic” within marginalized communities? We explore the sudden flood of misinformation and disinformation targeting Latinos during the 2020 election and global COVID-19 pandemic to answer these questions. In a preregistered experiment, we find that exposure to misinformation can decrease factual accuracy, and neither trust in nor consumption of media, including ethnic media, serves as a buffer against these misinformation effects. However, fact checks eliminate the effects of misinformation on false beliefs without "backfiring” and reducing accuracy. Fact checks improve factual accuracy among subgroups varying in levels of political knowledge, trust, and acculturation. These findings provide crucial support for recent investments into fact checking by Latino-oriented media outlets and address gaps within the literature over whether such interventions are also effective within marginalized groups.

Colonias, Water, and Extractable Bodies: COVID19's impact on the Rio Grande Valley

This paper develops the concept of "extractible bodies" and extends it to apply to Latinxs' experience in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) subject to structural problems and predatory market practices before and during the pandemic. The RGV has had more COVID cases than counties of equal population size. Through a mixed-methods approach, this paper describes, in detail, how racist state practices, structural inadequacies, poor administration, and predatory capitalism effectively explain why the RGV was the epicenter of COVID-19 in the State of Texas in 2020. We introduce a concept, extractable bodies, to show how Mexican Americans provide limitless opportunities for exploitation while, at the same time, lacking basic public services and shouldering the blame for such circumstances. We focus our analysis on Latinx "essential workers" in an area challenged by health issues, high obesity rates, inadequate infrastructure, the situation in las colonias, and how these factors contributed to the COVID crisis.

Civic Engagement and Latina Immigrant Mothers' Remote Learning Involvement During COVID‐19

Immigrant incorporation scholars have established that racialized immigrant parents encounter several barriers in their children's schooling: namely, language and cultural differences, discrimination, unfamiliarity with the U.S. schooling system, and unhelpful school agents. However, less is known about the mechanisms that lessen these challenges. Drawing on insights from immigrant incorporation and civic engagement literature, this study examines how advocacy organizations can mediate the barriers racialized immigrant parents face in their children's schooling. A case study of 20 Latina immigrant mothers is used to demonstrate how civically engaged parents drew on their participation with a local advocacy organization—Parent's Choice—to overcome the barriers that emerged during the transition to remote learning due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Findings suggest that immigrant mothers leveraged their connection to Parent's Choice to learn how to use technology, get district‐related updates, secure devices necessary for at‐home learning, create complaints or demands for services at their children's school, fill out paperwork, and access community‐based referrals. Parent's Choice provided support and empowered Latina immigrant parents by minimizing the overwhelming barriers they faced during online learning. These findings complicate our understanding of immigrant civic engagement patterns and provide implications of how civic engagement can facilitate the incorporation of marginalized parents in educational institutions.

Covid-19 en América Latina y México: brechas del bienestar

Este trabajo aborda empíricamente las brechas estructurales del bienestar reveladas por la epidemia de Covid-19 en cuatro países de América Latina: Argentina, Costa Rica, México y Panamá. Para ello, aborda diversos ámbitos: el sanitario, el económico, el del empleo y el de la protección social, particularmente en el ámbito de la afiliación a los sistemas de pensiones, la mayor o menor incidencia de la crisis en el ascenso de la pobreza y la pobreza extrema y la capacidad para responder a ese repunte, la agudización de las desigualdades de género y el surgimiento de brechas que magnifican las desigualdades educativas.Alternate abstract:This article empirically addresses structural welfare gaps revealed by the Covid-19 epidemic in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Panama. To do this, it examines various areas: healthcare, the economy, employment, social protection, particularly in the field of affiliation to pension systems, the greater or lesser incidence of the crisis in the growth of poverty and extreme poverty and the ability of each state to respond to that rise, the worsening of gender inequalities, and the emergence of gaps that magnify educational inequalities.

Marca país y su contribución al desarrollo sostenible: Inculcación de valores sociales y espíritu empresarial

El mundo cada vez es más complejo y preocupado por los recursos que la compone, la actual pandemia COVID-19 evidencia que no sólo las empresas sino también los países se ven envueltos en una competición a todos los niveles para convertirse en referencia impactando en las 3 dimensiones (económica, social y ambiental). El propósito de la presente investigación fue analizar las principales motivaciones que llevan las empresas con certificación B en América Latina. La metodología fue cualitativa bajo el método de teoría fundamentada, la unidad de análisis estuvo correspondida por 183 empresas bajo criterios de exclusión como: Pertenecer a las industrias de educación, turismo y hotelería, y apoyo a los emprendimientos, pertenecer a solo países de Latinoamérica y tener la certificación B. Los principales hallazgos fueron que las Empresas B responsables desarrollan una economía más inclusiva, sostenible y respetuosa con el medio ambiente en beneficio de la sociedad, que van más allá de la noción de Responsabilidad Social Empresarial. Las conclusiones evidencian que estas empresas se alejan de las empresas tradicionales, puesto que combinan el desarrollo social y el crecimiento económico posicionando a los países que tienen este tipo de empresas como referentes.Alternate :The world is becoming increasingly complex and concerned about the resources that compose it, the current COVID-19 pandemic shows that not only companies but also countries are involved in a competition at all levels to become a reference impacting on the 3 dimensions (economic, social and environmental). The purpose of this research was to analyze the main motivations of B-certified companies in Latin America. The methodology was qualitative under the grounded theory method, the unit of analysis was 183 companies under exclusion criteria such as: Belonging to the industries of education, tourism and hospitality, and support for entrepreneurship, belonging to only Latin American countries and having the B certification. The main findings were that responsible B companies develop a more inclusive, sustainable and environmentally friendly economy for the benefit of society, that they go beyond the notion of Corporate Social Responsibility. The conclusions show that these companies move away from traditional companies, as they combine social development and economic growth, positioning the countries that have these types of companies as benchmarks.

Salón de belleza versus ‘dispositivo de la persona': cuerpo, enfermedad y sexualidad

En Viajes virales (2012), la escritora Lina Meruane elabora una lectura crítica acerca del corpus literario sobre el SIDA producido en el auge de la epidemia en Latinoamérica. En este libro, Meruane destaca como una de las obras fundamentales sobre este tema la novela Salón de belleza (1994), de Mario Bellatin, que —al poner la enfermedad en discurso— delata el exterminio de la comunidad homosexual latinoamericana, que comprendería el gay pobre afeminado. Narrada en primera persona por el protagonista, un peluquero travesti, la novela gira en torno de este personaje que, en la ausencia de políticas de Estado, convierte a su salón de belleza en un ‘moridero' para acoger a los cuerpos de hombres enfermos y abandonados que, acometidos por una enfermedad contagiosa asociada de forma latente a la homosexualidad y al SIDA, ya no se adecuan a la categoría de persona humana, digna de derechos básicos. Suponiendo un "sujeto de la consciencia” apartado de su cuerpo, conforme ha teorizado Esposito (2009, 2011), la categoría de la persona es valorada en discursos jurídicos, filosóficos y políticos y —sobre todo— sustenta las reivindicaciones de los derechos humanos, contradictoriamente, tan en boga en la contemporaneidad. A la luz de esas ideas, el objetivo de este trabajo es analizar cómo la novela Salón de belleza, al enfocar el cuerpo enfermo y sexualmente disidente, problematiza la eficacia de la categoría de la persona como garantía de derechos, así se revela un dispositivo de exclusión de los cuerpos a servicio de la biopolítica que regula la muerte y separa biológicamente —a partir de la enfermedad, del género y de la sexualidad— a los que merecen vivir de los que merecen morir.Alternate : In Viajes virales (2012), Lina Meruane provides a critical reading of the literary corpus on AIDS, produced at the height of the epidemic in Latin America. In this book, the author highlights the novel Salón de belleza (1994), by Mario Bellatin, as one of the fundamental works on this theme, in which the writing of the disease denounces the extermination of the Latin American homosexual community, which would include the poor effeminate gay. The novel revolves around a cross-dresser hairdresser who, in the absence of public policies, converts his beauty salon into a ‘moridero' to shelter the abandoned bodies of sick men who, affected by a contagious disease indirectly associated with homosexuality and AIDS, no longer fit into the category of human person, worthy of basic rights. In turn, assuming a "universal” and "disembodied” individual, the dispositif of the person, as theorized by Roberto Esposito (2009, 2011), has become the key concept that sustains human rights claims, contradictorily, so popular in contemporaneity. In light of these ideas, the aim of this paper is to analyze how Salón de belleza, by focusing on the sick and sexually dissident body, problematizes the effectiveness of the dispositif of the person to guarantee rights, revealing itself, in reality, as a biopolitical apparatus of exclusion and control of bodies: separating biologically-based on health condition, gender and sexuality- who deserves to live and who must die.Alternate : Em Viajes virales (2012), Lina Meruane elabora uma leitura crítica acerca do corpus literário sobre a Aids produzido no auge da epidemia na América Latina. Neste livro, a autora destaca a novela Salón de belleza (1994), de Mario Bellatin, como uma das obras fundamentais sobre este tema, na qual a doença posta em discurso delata o extermínio da comunidade homossexual latino-americana, que compreenderia o gay pobre afeminado. A novela gira em torno de um cabeleireiro travesti que, na ausência de políticas públicas, converte o seu salão de beleza em um ‘moridero' para acolher os corpos abandonados de homens doentes que, acometidos por uma doença contagiosa associada indiretamente à homossexualidade e à aids, não mais se adequam à categoria de pessoa humana, digna de direitos básicos. Por seu turno, p essupondo um indivíduo "universal” e "descorporificado”, a categoria de pessoa, conforme teorizou Roberto Esposito (2009, 2011), tornou-se o conceito-chave que sustenta as reivindicações dos direitos humanos, contraditoriamente, tão em voga na contemporaneidade. À luz dessas ideias, o objetivo deste trabalho é analisar de que modo Salón de belleza, ao pôr em foco o corpo doente e sexualmente dissidente, problematiza a eficácia da categoria de pessoa como garantidora de direitos, revelando-se, em realidade, um dispositivo biopolítico de exclusão e controle dos corpos: separando biologicamente -a partir da doença, do gênero e da sexualidade- quem merece viver e quem deve morrer.

Los parlamentos en América Latina en tiempos de pandemia

Como indican sus autores y autoras, América Latina es una de las regiones en las que el impacto de la pandemia se sintió con más fuerza, tanto en cuanto a la cantidad de contagios y de muertes contabilizadas a causa de la enfermedad, como respecto de la caída estrepitosa de los indicadores económicos. Ciertamente, bajo el paraguas de la excepcionalidad se firmaron decretos y normativas que incrementaron el poder presidencial de forma extraordinaria, afectando en gran parte también la función primordial de control de los parlamentos sobre los ejecutivos. En definitiva, el libro centra su atención en una serie de dimensiones de importancia fundamental para esta región como lo son las relaciones entre los poderes de gobierno, el control mutuo, el equilibrio de poderes, y la vigencia de las libertades individuales y de las garantías republicanas.

Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on a Community-Based, Palliative Care Lay Advisor Project for Latinos with Cancer

The COVID-19 pandemic posed challenges to a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project for rural-dwelling adults with cancer in eastern North Carolina. This project trained Latino community leaders as palliative care lay advisors (PCLAs) to deliver information on cancer symptom management and advance care planning (ACP). Pandemic impacts were assessed using data from team meetings and fieldnotes, journal memos, online booster sessions, participant encounter forms and digital correspondence. Three key results were: 1) the disproportionate effects of COVID -19 on PCLAs and their communities;2) the need for a major study redesign that extended the recruitment region and changed the mode of intervention delivery;and 3) the adoption of new channels of communication. Online discussions and in-person meetings with PCLAs sustained engagement, resulting in a two-year, 73 percent retention rate, and addressed community concerns about COVID-19. Applied outcomes included the selection by the regional cancer center of a 2022 goal to improve cultural care for Latinos and the empowerment of PCLAs as community advocates. The challenges created by COVID-19 were met by the study team's ongoing commitment to CBPR principles, flexible adaptations to a changing environment, and strong relationships forged with community members and advocacy groups.

Presentación

En particular, la emergencia sanitaria mundial provocada por el COVID-19 ha demostrado que no se han cumplido las expectativas de que la sociedad internacional actúe como una comunidad global donde todos -o, por lo menos, una parte- de sus miembros se solidaricen entre sí, en lugar de buscar soluciones por separado. Como sugerimos en la convocatoria de este número de la Revista CS, son procesos que forman parte de los cambios asociados con el desplazamiento del dinamismo económico global desde el Atlántico -el referente tradicional de los países latinoamericanos- hacia el Asia-Pacífico. En este sentido, cabe notar que la Revista CS ha sido parte de estos esfuerzos cuando publicó su primer número enfocado en el tema de Asia y América Latina en 2014 (Baron;Rouvinski;Milanese, 2014). Sin embargo, desde la perspectiva de Soliz-de Stange, se trata de otro fenómeno que tiene que ver con una nueva realidad que vive América Latina en el siglo XXI: la presencia establecida de China que cuenta con las capacidades de promover sus intereses en esta parte del mundo y la emergencia de una relación triangular entre China, Estados Unidos y Venezuela. En el tercer artículo de la sección temática, "China-CEE Relations in a New Era: The Drivers behind the Development ofthe Platform for Regional Cooperation 16+1", David Castrillón-Kerrigan explora la creciente incidencia de China en los países de Europa Central.

Organizing Workers in the Informal Economy in Selected African and Latin American Countries: The Potential of Trade Union and Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) partnerships

The article gives an account of the result of the research developed in response to the call made by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Open Society Foundations (OSF) in 2021 to carry out a project that would identify the potential of the link between unions and cooperatives to organize workers in the informal economy in African and Latin American countries. Researchers from ODI, London, with the collaboration of researchers and practitioners from Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, identified and documented partnership examples through which to shed light development processes, identify learning on successes and challenges, and inform recommendations for future support. A country case study of Colombia is provided to illustrate the variety, complexity and possibilities of the topic studied. Three nascent partnership experiences, linked in different ways to the social and solidarity economy, demonstrate the potential of this approach to promote fair trade, responsible consumption and local markets, boost entrepreneurship and create decent working conditions for workers who traditionally face informality.Alternate :El artículo da cuenta del resultado de la investigación desarrollada en respuesta a la convocatoria realizada por la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) y la Open Society Foundations (OSF) en el 2021 para llevar a cabo un proyecto que permitiera identificar los beneficios del vínculo entre los sindicatos y la Economía Social y Solidaria (ESS) para organizar los trabajadores de la economía informal en países africanos y latinoamericanos. Investigadoras de ODI, de Londres con la colaboración de investigadoras de Brasil, Colombia, Ghana, Kenia y Uganda, identificaron y documentaron casos que permiten analizar los procesos de desarrollo de alianzas, proporcionando aprendizajes a partir de los éxitos y desafíos como también recomendaciones para el futuro. Se revisa en especial el caso colombiano, para ilustrar la variedad, complejidad y posibilidades del estudio desarrollado;allí, se describen tres experiencias, todas en etapas tempranas, vinculadas con diferentes expresiones de la economía social y solidaria que demuestran los potenciales de esta relación para fomentar el comercio justo, el consumo responsable y los mercados locales;dinamizar el emprendimiento en los territorios y crear condiciones de trabajo digno para los trabajadores que afrontan tradicionalmente la informalidad.

Presentación del Dossier. América Latina y el mundo frente al COVID-19: problemas, experiencias y debates abiertos a un año de la pandemia

Presentation of the Dossier Latin America and the world facing COVID-19: problems, experiences and open debates one year after the pandemicAlternate :Presentación Del Dossier América Latina y el mundo frente al COVID-19: problemas, experiencias y debates abiertos a un año de la pandemia

Diversos enfoques, raíces comunes: “COVID-19 & Crisis de Desarrollo Humano en América Latina”

COVID-19 & Crisis de Desarrollo Humano es el resultado de un esfuerzo colaborativo para congregar a una pluralidad de voces latinoamericanas y abordar la complejidad de la crisis actual de una forma consecuente con el enfoque de capacidades de Amartya Sen, es decir, reconociendo la multidimensionalidad del problema. Pero la reflexión no sólo apunta a un estudio sobre la región, sino también a la comprensión de las implicancias de la crisis sobre la forma y grado de aplicación que podría alcanzar el enfoque de las capacidades, las dimensiones faltantes o no suficientemente exploradas en los análisis del bienestar y las posibilidades para fortalecer el vínculo del enfoque con las políticas públicas y de protección social. En este sentido, el libro también se plantea como una reflexión desde las particularidades de la crisis en América Latina. La presente edición es recomendada a investigadores que busquen ganar un entendimiento comprehensivo y crítico de las posibilidades y retos del desarrollo humano en América Latina durante y tras la pandemia.

Social safety net programs and food sufficiency during COVID-19 pandemic in the USA

Purpose>The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many households to experience income shocks because of the unprecedented job loss, resulting in the demand for public and private food assistance programs and a surge in unemployment insurance filing in the USA. This study aims to investigate the association between social safety programs (e.g. supplementary nutritional assistance programs (SNAP), unemployment insurance and charitable food assistance) and household food sufficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.Design/methodology/approach>The authors used the Household Pulse Surveys (HPS) conducted by the US Census Bureau from August 2020 to March 2021. And, the authors used an ordered probit model for the empirical analysis because the indicator of food sufficiency constructed from the HPS is an ordinal variable with four categories. The indicator identifies four groups of households: severe food insufficiency, moderate food insufficiency, mild food sufficiency and food sufficiency.Findings>The results show that food sufficiency is significantly higher among the SNAP, unemployment insurance and charitable food assistance recipients than non-recipients. Furthermore, the results indicate that food sufficiency is significantly lower among black, Asian, Hispanic and other races than white households. Concerning the intersectional effect of social safety net programs and race/ethnicity on household food sufficiency, the authors find that the household food sufficiency is significantly higher among white, black and Asian households who benefited from SNAP, compared with non-beneficiary households. On the other hand, the authors find no evidence that participation in SNAP increases food sufficiency significantly among Hispanics and other races. In addition, the likelihood of food sufficiency increases significantly among white, black, Asian, Hispanic and other races that received unemployment insurance and charitable food assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with those who did not benefit from the programs.Practical implications>These results underscore the critical role collective America’s social safety net programs played in increasing food sufficiency among Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the results suggest that families' basic needs (food sufficiency) would have been at risk if these safety net programs were not available to households during the pandemic. This, therefore, highlights the important role that government- and non-government-supported food emergency assistance programs can play in preventing people from facing food insufficiency problems in a tough time or during a crisis in the USA.Originality/value>This study highlights the dynamic relationship between Americans’ social safety net programs and household food sufficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic.