Affective Correlates of Metropolitan Food Insecurity and Misery during COVID-19

We explore the affective correlates of food insecurity and contrast with affective correlates of other variables, such as difficulty in paying household expenses, non-current payment status on rent and mortgage payments, loss (or expected loss) of employment income, and high likelihood of imminent eviction. Specifically, we compute associations between these variables recently analyzed and reported, in aggregate, by Bloomberg (and originally collected by the Census Bureau in February, 2021), and affective wellbeing data (collected by Gallup during 2020 after mass lockdowns in the United States). The data span fifteen metropolitan areas. In particular, we find (with 95 percent confidence) that loneliness is positively and highly correlated with food insecurity. Anger is highly correlated with several of the variables mentioned earlier, although not at a high enough significance. In this brief report, we report these preliminary associations and comment on possible implications, along with a set of research questions that are suggested by these early results.