In June 2023, 12% of Americans reported that their household sometimes or often went hungry. In the South, it was 13%. Three Southern states had the highest rate of food insecurity: LA (19%), MS (18%), and AR (17%).

Provisional data for 2022 shows that pregnancy-related deaths decreased to 22 per 100,00 live births (817 overall deaths). Still, pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. have more than doubled since 1999.

Firearms are now the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. Gun deaths among children have increased by 50%, reaching a high of 2,590 deaths in 2021.

The percent of adults in the U.S. reporting symptoms of anxiety and depression has tripled from 11% in 2019 to 33% in June 2023.

While reports of worsening mental health and suicidality were higher among all teens, female and LGBQ+ students fared worst according to Fall 2021 data. Nearly 1 in 2 LGBQ+ students and 1 in 3 female students in U.S. high schools reported that they had seriously considered attempting suicide.

The excess death gap (the difference between observed deaths and expected deaths) between the U.S. and the 5 largest western European countries is higher than ever, nearly doubling from 465,617 excess deaths in 2017 to 892,491 excess deaths in 2021.

As Covid ravaged the nation in 2020 and 2021, on its way to killing more than 1 million Americans, the U.S. death rate jumped 20%.

In Southern states, 10 out of 12 Southern states (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, NC, SC, TN, and WV) enacted bills to limit the authority of officials regarding public health emergency orders.

Among those who previously had Covid, 29% of Southerners (and 26% of non-Southerners) are currently experiencing prolonged symptoms, known as Long Covid.

In 2021, over 100,000 Americans died of a drug overdose, up from just 17,415 in 2000.

In February alone, 4 million workers quit jobs. Quits rates were highest in the leisure and hospitality (5.6% in February) and retail (3.6% in February) where wages are typically low.

The nation gained 1 million jobs in the first three months of 2023 to reach a new record of 155.6 million jobs. But employers continue to struggle to find workers, with nearly 10 million unfilled jobs reported in February 2023 – up from 7 million reported in February 2019.

Southerners have borne the brunt of climate disasters, with 76% of Southerners living in a county that has had a disaster since March 2020, compared to 64% of non-Southerners.

Despite strong job growth, Americans remain pessimistic about the economy.[1] Many observers point to recent spikes in groceries and gasoline prices as the source of this pessimism. But tuition, health care, and rent costs have also risen steeply since 2005.

The differential undercount of renters in the 2020 Census increased to 1.5%, up from 1.1% in 2010, according to the Post-Enumeration Survey, a Census Bureau field test of census accuracy.

In the 2022 election, only 13% of the seats for the U.S. House of Representatives were competitive (won by a margin of less than 8%), continuing a decline in competitive districts.

The 2022 midterm election saw voter turnout rates drop in 42 states compared to the 2018 midterms, and nationwide turnout fell below 47%.

In 2010, the Affordable Care Act began to dramatically reduce the number of uninsured people across the country through Medicaid expansion and new subsidies for health insurance “marketplaces.” 10 states (6 of them in the South) have still not adopted Medicaid expansion.

As feared, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test results from early 2022 reveal that both math and reading scores declined for 4th and 8th graders, compared to before the pandemic in 2019.

75% of Southern counties are news deserts, compared to only 50% of non-Southern counties.