Empty shelves, fewer babies: How the pandemic is leading to less
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 January 2022
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
Today on Post Reports: Why you’re seeing empty shelves at the grocery store — again. Plus, the sharp decline in the U.S. birthrate nine months after the pandemic began.
Read more:
A lot of people have been getting “March 2020 vibes” at the grocery store lately: Empty shelves, basic necessities missing and big price increases on certain foods. Reporter Laura Reiley explains there are several factors at play, including the omicron surge, supply chain woes and winter weather.
“Uncertainty is not good for fertility.” That’s what demographics reporter Tara Bahrampour heard from Phillip Levine, a professor of economics at Wellesley College and co-author of a recent report on the “baby bust” nine months after the pandemic began. That’s also what she heard from people about their decisions to delay or reconsider having a child. We talk about the many reasons for this trend, from the logistical to the philosophical.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So I normally like to go to my local grocery store every few days, pop in, get a few items, |
| 0:08.5 | pop out. |
| 0:09.8 | But lately, I've been seeing these crazy photos on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook of my grocery |
| 0:17.0 | store and its bare shelves. |
| 0:21.8 | I'm in straight up bunker mode. |
| 0:23.9 | I'm working my way through my cans of beans, but I'm also wondering what's going on |
| 0:29.5 | here. |
| 0:31.1 | So I called someone. |
| 0:33.0 | I got hundreds of emails yesterday saying, you're completely wrong, everything is fine |
| 0:37.9 | where I am and other people corroborating that there are decimated shelves, whether |
| 0:42.7 | it's cat food or paper goods or milk or the dreaded cream cheese. |
| 0:49.7 | That's Laura Riley. |
| 0:50.8 | She covers the business of food for the post. |
| 0:53.9 | Some of it is you go to a grocery store, you see an empty shelf and you say to yourself, |
| 0:59.1 | other people know something that I don't know and I better start stockpiling. |
| 1:04.3 | You know, that was the like, we're all still working off that toilet paper from last year, |
| 1:08.4 | but you know, it comes down to kind of irrational, paranoid psychology. |
| 1:15.9 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 1:19.6 | I'm Ella Hay Izadi. |
| 1:21.7 | It's Wednesday, January 12. |
| 1:24.2 | Today, our grocery store shelves are empty again. |
| 1:29.2 | Plus, why so many people have put off having a kid? |
... |
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