Trump's cuts come for food banks

So, I normally have the Beige Book on my calendar. I set aside the whole day to read the report, brew a pot of tea. I make a whole thing out of it. But there has been so much economic news lately. Tariffs on, tariffs off, stock market red, stock market green, that I somehow overlooked that the Federal Reserve had put out its most recent report of economic conditions across the United States.

It's the Beijing Awards, our eight times a year salute to the art and science of telling stories about the economy. I'm Robert Smith.

Bundle up, baby. It's cold outside after the break. Always good to remind everyone how this award show works. There are 12 regional banks in the Federal Reserve System. Each one studies their local economy and brings back little stories of what they see. They publish them in the Beige Book. We give awards to the best stories.

Yeah, like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Multiple businesses talked about a hiring freeze. Which is better than layoffs. Yes, but in order to keep the unemployment rate stable, the US economy has to add 100 to 200,000 jobs a month. A freeze is definitely bad news.

Good.

Not good.

Oh, that's promising.

waylon, we just need to embrace the moment and stop sugarcoating it. The best entries from the Beige Book this time were the most depressing ones. For instance, I'd like to give a runner up award to a small entry from the Philadelphia Fed. You know those restaurant weeks where every restaurant in town offers some sort of deal?

So patriotic. But unfortunately, this is the Philadelphia entry in the Beige Book. Quote, a significant number of restaurants chose not to participate in an annual Local Restaurant Week promotion because they couldn't afford to discount their menu items.

the edge and we could all use a cheap meal right now. Right? But no matter. Let's perk up the mood with a little drum roll. And the winner of the Beijing Award.

Coming to the stage is not one, but two writers from the Kansas City Fed, Jeremy Hill and Stephen Howland. We spoke to them on April 25th. Congratulations, gentlemen.

So I have to tell you, even though it is a virtual award, we only have one of them. Have you decided how you're going to split this?

Let's start with the wonk. We've been talking endlessly on the indicator about price increases from tariffs and which products would be the most impacted. But Jeremy Hill, you noted that some firms are talking about increasing prices across the board. I will read the entry. Quote, contacts indicated passing rising costs to customers will occur over the next several months and anticipated goods prices will rise broadly as many suppliers are spreading cost increases across their entire product portfolios.

firms, which I guess makes sense, right? Customers may be able to stomach smaller price increases everywhere rather than have one or two products be completely unaffordable.

Funding cuts from the USDA were highlighted as particularly impactful regarding services for seniors. Specifically, one pantry reported cutting back the amount of food they can give from three to five days of shelf stable food to two days of food every 30 days due to funding cuts. Stephen Holland, you wrote that line, and it's very specific. We always hear about food banks struggling generally, but this is a drop of five days worth of food to two days worth of food. What happened?

We wanted to hear what food banks in the region were doing to respond. So we called up one that provides food to 27 counties in Missouri and Kansas.

Now, food banks always need more food. You never call up a food bank and they say, oh, no, we're good. We got everything we need right now. But Stephen Davis says it's especially bad this year.

He estimates that this will mean they will lose out on 2.4 million pounds of food.

Now, of course, Harvesters is going back to their donors and volunteers. They're hustling more extra food from manufacturers. But Stephen says he doesn't know what will happen if the money doesn't come

Ah, the next beige book. Yes. It's June 4th. I have it marked on my calendar in my phone. I'm not going to forget it this time. And I wanted to say congratulations to our two winners from the Kansas City Fed, Jeremy Hill and Stephen Howland. The next beige book is gonna be a crucial one. You two aren't planning vacations or something before then? Well, I don't have any scheduled.

No rest for the Fed. I'm sure they get vacations.