Hundreds of thousands of Americans may soon have less money for groceries.
Provisions in the House Farm Bill poised to cut funding to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits could trim much as $50 to $75 per month from monthly food budgets for 800,000 to 1.1 million families. The estimated impact of the cuts comes from an analysis by New Jersey-based policy research organization Mathematica, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health philanthropy.
“SNAP has a long and successful history of providing temporary help to reduce food insecurity, lift people out of poverty, help families achieve self-sufficiency and reduce health disparities,” Giridhar Mallya, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said. “Any reforms to SNAP should be driven by analysis of impacts on access, equity, cost and program outcomes including food security, financial security and diet quality.”
Some 40 million people in the U.S. experienced food insecurity in 2017, according to numbers from the U.S.Department of Agriculture. The most common beneficiaries of SNAP — also called food stamps — are the elderly, families with children, and people with disabilities.
As of now, both the House and the Senate have passed their own versions of the farm bill. The House version would cut SNAP benefits, while the version the Senate passed would not. Specifically, the House bill would prohibit recipients of SNAP benefits from making certain deductions from their income to receive a higher SNAP benefit.
The average three-person household with a child received $346 in monthly SNAP benefits in 2017, the Mathematica study found. And if the change to earnings deductions is passed, that amount will decline to between $197 to $246 per month.
SNAP has garnered criticism from Republican lawmakers who believe the program is wasteful. In fiscal year 2017, the federal government spent about $70 billion on SNAP and other food assistance programs. To qualify for SNAP benefits, a household’s monthly income for a family of three or more must be at or below 130% of the poverty line or $2,213 ($26,000 per year).
Proponents of SNAP say it’s a lifeline that prevents families from sinking further into poverty. A separate study from the Urban Institute said there were 28% fewer children in poverty in 2015 as a result of SNAP and a separate study distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research found SNAP benefits were shown to raise the living standards of the Americans who rely on them. Some 79% to 84% (700,000 to 900,000) of the households that would be affected by House Farm Bill cuts include children and 76% to 80% (600,000 to 900,000 households) live in poverty, Mathematica found.
“This would take food off the table of close to 1 million households that are among the most vulnerable populations in the country,” said Melissa Boteach, senior vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity program at the Center for American Progress, a progressive public policy and advocacy organization. “These cuts would be devastating to these households.”
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