SAN DIEGO — President Joe Biden signed two executive orders Friday aimed at the economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The recovery plan calls to aid food insecurity, increase minimum wage and access affordable childcare to raise people above the poverty line.
The San Diego Food Bank addresses how this plan will impact the county. Jim Floros, President & CEO of San Diego Food Bank believes President Joe Biden's executive order will be bring relief to food insecurity in the county.
"Pre-COVID, one in seven people in San Diego County turned food insecure, COVID hit, that number more than doubled, so nearly one-million people turned food insecure," said Floros.
He says in the recovery plan to fight hunger- this means more funds for the CalFresh Food Stamps Program: SNAP. "The 15% bump is probably about $100 more per family of four per month."
"Our recovery plan also calls for an increase in the minimum wage at 15 -- at least $15 an hour. Nobody in America should work 40 hours a week making below the poverty line. $15 gets people above the poverty line. We have so many millions of people working 40 hours a week, working, some with 2 jobs, and they're still below the poverty line," said President Joe Biden, on Friday.
Floros says just seeing how much food has been distributed through the pandemic you can see the financial need.
Just in the month of December 5.8-million pounds of food was distributed. "We've never distributed that much food, that's 4.8 million meals," said Floros.
Floros also tells News 8, the pandemic has food banks hard, with corporations dropping out from financial assistance, volunteerism and the community has been stepping up with packaging food for distribution and monetary donations.
"There's plenty of food, stay calm, we'll weather the storm, the sad part is even when Covid goes away, we got a full-blown recession so we're going to see an increase need for two or three years."
