Joe Hernandez

Joe Hernandez is a reporter on NPR's National Desk, where he covers affordability issues with a focus on food and childcare.

He's written about the ways high costs are reshaping the grocery industry, cuts to SNAP and why more grandparents are helping with childcare. Joe has gone on the road for NPR to cover major breaking news stories, such as the condo collapse in Surfside, Fla., and mass shootings in Maine and Buffalo, N.Y. As a general assignment reporter, he wrote about a wide range of topics, including the rise of weighted infant sleepwear, low morale among air traffic controllers and an unpublished John Steinbeck werewolf novel.

Before joining NPR, Joe covered New Jersey for WHYY in Philadelphia and WBGO in Newark, where he reported on the Bridgegate scandal and the first federal corruption trial of Sen. Bob Menendez. Joe got his start in public radio at WNYC in New York.