COVID-19 Relief Receipt and U.S. Household Food Expenditures

COVID-19 relief payments and programs may have contributed to the shift in food expenditures from food away from home to food at home during the pandemic. This shift has public health implications given the differences in the nutritional quality between food at home and food away from home. The objective of this study is to examine the association between COVID-19 relief and household food at home and food away from home expenditure shares. Economic Impact Payments, Pandemic-Electronic Benefits Transfer, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and charitable food receipt are considered.

Food expenditure and COVID-19 relief data for 265,443 households were obtained from Phase 3.1 (April 28 to July 5, 2021) of the Household Pulse Survey. Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimators were employed in 2023 to analyze the association between COVID-19 relief and household food at home and food away from home expenditure shares.

Pandemic-Electronic Benefits Transfer receipt was associated with households allocating 3% less of food expenditures to food at home and 9% more to food away from home. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and charitable food receipt were associated with spending 8% and 3% more of food expenditures on food at home and 22% and 9% less on food away from home, respectively. Recent Economic Impact Payment receipt was associated with reduced food at home and increased food away from home expenditure shares among households with low-income and/or a Black respondent.

Study results indicate that COVID-19 relief contributed to changing food expenditure patterns during the pandemic. Of note, Pandemic-Electronic Benefits Transfer and Economic Impact Payment receipt were associated with spending a greater share of food dollars on food away from home. Nutritional implications of COVID-19 relief warrant further investigation and should be carefully considered in the design of future nutrition assistance emergency relief.