Research by the Urban Institute, a Washington-based nonpartisn think tank for economic and social policy, found that the enhanced SNAP benefits kept 4.2 million people above the poverty line in the final quarter of 2021, lowering 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 had allowed the enhanced SNAP benefits to extend to the federal March 1 deadline. But many others — including Florida, Arkansas, Georgia and Mississippi — had already chosen to end the emergency allotment, in some cases as early as 2021.
Food banks in those areas say they’ve seen sharply higher demand since SNAP benefits were reduced, and relief organizations in the remaining states are now scrambling to strategize.
“We saw what happened in the other states, where they ended so early,” said Laura Lester, chief executive of the Feeding Alabama food bank network, which serves a state where the extra aid cuts out next week.
In Georgia, which ended its enhanced benefits last May, the Atlanta Community Food Bank told NBC News earlier this month that visits had increased 34% through December. Wholesome Wave Georgia, a nonprofit that administers a program that matches SNAP dollars spent on local produce, said the total number of families it has served since the emergency allotment expired was already approaching its typical annual figures, though the group didn’t attribute its recent demand solely to SNAP changes.
“We are currently preparing ourselves for that,” Lester said.
In part to counter the emergency benefit expiration, the Community Food Bank of Central Alabama has boosted its annual budget to $10 million from $8.9 million last year, it said. The organization said it spent more than $5 million last year purchasing food to donate, up from $3.2 million in 2021.
Operations officials at the Food Bank of North Alabama said they recently ordered twice the amount of food they typically buy this time of year. The food bank also said donations that might typically require too many personnel to bag and deliver — a huge bin of sweet potatoes, for example — are now embraced. It is also planning a large mobile pantry for the first week of April, aimed to coincide with the depletion of residents’ last enhanced 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 adjustment is expected in the fall. In 2021, the USDA also undertook a top-to-bottom reevaluation of Americans’ dietary needs and food costs, and increased the maximum SNAP benefits by 21%.
Still, some advocates and economists warn that many low-income Americans’ finances are in perilous shape even as the country moves beyond the pandemic. Indeed, the USDA’s estimate for the cost of a “thrifty” balanced monthly meal plan for a family of four with grade-school-age children has increased by around 50% since before the pandemic, from about $654 in January 2020 to $978 in January 2023.
“SNAP is our most effective tool at fighting hunger,” said Dottie Rosenbaum, a senior fellow who studies the program at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Now that this temporary boost is coming to an end in all states, families who are already struggling to afford the rising cost of food and other expenses are going to feel a big impact.”
In a recent survey Bankrate published Thursday, 39% of U.S. adults reported having less savings than last year, and 10% who had no emergency savings last year still have none this year.
As financial buffers dwindle, the SNAP enhancements have provided a crucial, if partial, cushion for many Americans, said Mark Hamrick, chief economic analyst at Bankrate. Cutting them now “is removing a social safety net component that is going to cause some people to face food insecurity,” he said. “The expiration or lack of availability of this benefit really couldn’t occur at a less opportune time.”
Article Appeared @https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/snap-food-stamp-benefits-cut-higher-food-prices-worry-recipients-rcna71623