When the pandemic aid that has boosted food stamp benefits is cut next week, millions of low-income Americans will face smaller balances in the accounts they use to pay for food, prompting food banks to brace for an increase in demand.
As of March 1, emergency allocation for individuals and families enrolled in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, will end in 32 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands.
That means beneficiary households will see their monthly grocery allowances reduced by at least $95, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning policy and research think tank. In daily terms, that equates to cutting the average from about $9 per person to about $6.10. And the change comes when food prices in January were had increased by 10% compared to the same month last year.
Charles Jones, a 63-year-old US military veteran based in Rockford, Illinois, received an enhanced monthly SNAP benefit of $281 under the temporary program. After the end of the next week, his payments will plummet to $23, the minimum monthly amount.
“When they remove this extra benefit from SNAP, that’s going to put me in serious trouble,” he said.
Jones said his pandemic-era SNAP payments helped him move from a homeless shelter to a $650-a-month studio earlier this month. He said he worries that when his allowance is reduced, likely because he also receives Social Security disability insurance payments, his rent and utilities will eat up all of his income, jeopardizing his new opportunity to earn money. stability of it.
“It helped me a lot,” said Jones, who also relies on boxed pantry deliveries but said she often can’t eat much of the box because of a heart condition. “You know how the government is. They want to keep the rich rich and the poor poor.”
Stacy Dean, deputy assistant secretary at the US Department of Agriculture, which administers the SNAP program, acknowledged that the emergency benefits turned out to be “powerful” for recipients.
“That cannot be stressed enough in the difference it has made in mitigating increases in hunger and addressing economic hardship and poverty,” Dean said. He added that while the expiration of the program «will be very difficult,» the additional help he provided «was always designed to be temporary.»
More than 42.3 million people participated in SNAP through October, the last period for which federal data was available. Participation had not previously exceeded that level since the summer of 2020. The total cost of the program for fiscal year 2021 was $113.68 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service. That included nine months of a 15% increase to the maximum benefit as part of the emergency appropriations.
Research by the Urban Institute, a Washington-based nonpartisan economic and social policy think tank, found that enhanced SNAP benefits kept 4.2 million people above the poverty line in the last quarter of 2021, reducing overall poverty by 10% and child poverty by 14%. The study also found that the emergency program helped reduce poverty rates most steeply among black and Latino recipients.
Illinois is one of 32 states that allowed enhanced SNAP benefits to be extended through the March 1 federal deadline. But many others, including Florida, Arkansas, Georgia and Mississippi, had already chosen to end the emergency allocation, in some cases as early as 2021.
Food banks in those areas say they have seen much higher demand since SNAP benefits were cut, and aid organizations in the remaining states are now scrambling to come up with a strategy.
“We saw what happened in the other states, where they ended so early,” said Laura Lester, executive director of the Feeding Alabama food bank network, which serves a state where extra aid cuts off next week.
In Georgia, which ended its enhanced benefits last May, the Atlanta Community Food Bank told NBC News earlier this month that visits were up 34% through December. Wholesome Wave Georgia, a nonprofit organization that runs a program that matches SNAP dollars spent on local products, said the total number of families it has served since the emergency allotment expired was already nearing its numbers. typical annuals, though the group did not attribute its recent demand solely to SNAP changes.
“We are currently preparing for that,” Lester said.
In part to offset the expiration of emergency benefits, the Central Alabama Community Food Bank increased its annual budget to $10 million from $8.9 million last year, he said. The organization said it spent more than $5 million last year buying food to donate, up from $3.2 million in 2021.
Operations officials at the North Alabama Food Bank said they recently ordered twice the amount of food they normally buy this time of year. The food bank also said that donations that normally require too many staff to pack and deliver, for example a large container of sweet potatoes, are now accepted. It is also planning a large mobile pantry for the first week of April, with the goal of coinciding with the depletion of the last enhanced resident benefit payment.
In October, the USDA issued a 12.5% cost-of-living adjustment to the maximum SNAP benefit, but the full impact on recipients’ finances in a period of high inflation remains unclear. Another setting is expected in the fall. In 2021, USDA also conducted a top-down reassessment of Americans’ dietary needs and food costs, increasing maximum SNAP benefits by 21%.
Still, some advocates and economists warn that the finances of many low-income Americans are in perilous straits even as the country emerges from the pandemic. In fact, the USDA estimate for the cost of a «low-cost» balanced monthly meal plan for a family of four with school-age children has increased by about 50% since before the pandemic, from about $654 in January 2020 to $978 in January 2023.
«The expiration or unavailability of this benefit really couldn’t happen at a less opportune time.»
Mark Hamrick, Bankrate Chief Economic Analyst
“SNAP is our most effective tool in fighting hunger,” said Dottie Rosenbaum, a senior researcher studying the program at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Now that this temporary boost is coming to an end in every state, families who are already struggling to pay the rising cost of groceries and other expenses are going to feel a big hit.”
in a recent Bankrate survey published on Thursday39% of US adults reported having less savings than last year, and the 10% who did not have emergency savings last year still do not have them this year.
As financial buffers ease, SNAP improvements have provided a crucial, if partial, cushion for many Americans, said Mark Hamrick, chief economic analyst at Bankrate. Cutting them now “is removing a component of the social safety net that will leave some people facing food insecurity,” he said. «The expiration or unavailability of this benefit really couldn’t happen at a less opportune time.»