5.8 Additional American Households Report Not Having Enough to Eat

That was for the week ended Dec. 7 compared with early March, according to new data from the Census Bureau. It’s an increase of almost 30% from early March.

About half of the increase in food insecurity has come from households with children. Overall, about 21 million American adults live in households that sometimes don’t have enough to eat, while another 6.5 million live in households that often don’t have enough to eat.

Additionally, another 62 million American adults live in households that eat enough food, but not the kinds of food they would prefer. This group has grown by 19.3 million since the pandemic began, and includes many Americans who lost their jobs--or had their pay cut--and have been surviving by drawing down savings and building up credit card debt.

Between September and November, U.S. Spending at Bars and Restaurants Fell 4.5%

That is according to new data from the Census Bureau. As the weather got worse and the third wave of the virus surged, fewer people wanted to go out to eat.

Before the third wave, spending at bars and restaurants had recovered to 85% of the level in February after adjusting for normal seasonal variation. That recovery had coincided with a 15% drop in spending at grocery stores from the March peak.

Grocery spending has since rebounded, but that wasn’t enough to prevent overall retail spending from falling in November as the virus spread.

Only grocery stores and building supply stores registered gains--and those were the same two sectors to have fared best earlier in the pandemic when Americans avoided going out.

Private Fixed-Asset Investment in China Rises 0.2%

That excluding real estate and for the first 11 months of the year, compared with the same period last year. It’s a better performance than much of the rest of the world, but it’s weak compared with the rest of the Chinese economy. Overall fixed asset investment was up 2.6% year-to-date.

In fact, most categories of investment spending fell sharply. China’s manufacturing sector cut investment by 3.5%, despite significant capital expenditures by the pharmaceutical and tech sectors.

The divergence can be explained by the choices of China’s state-owned enterprises and local governments, which boosted investment spending this year. In particular, infrastructure spending jumped, with “electricity, heat, gas, and water” investment rising 17.5% from a year ago.

Numbers by Barron’s is our daily podcast. Find out more here.

Write to Matthew Klein at Matthew.Klein@barrons.com