news Bipartisan cuts to COVID-era SNAP benefits to push 31M Americans into food insecurity

[Communion]

Quote

SNAP is one of the most important and effective welfare programs in the country, with 42 million people currently enrolled. And the enhanced SNAP addition that boosted benefits was a particularly effective anti-poverty provision, helping children and people of color in particular. One study from the Urban Institute found that the extra allotments kept 4.2 million people above the poverty line in the last quarter of 2021. That reduced poverty by 10 percent, and child poverty by 14 percent. The reduction in poverty rates was highest for Black and Latino populations.

 

But enhanced SNAP wasn’t just effective at fighting poverty. It was also very popular.

 

Both rural and urban Americans overwhelmingly supported the expanded program, according to a 2022 Purdue University survey on food policy. And yet, in December, in a pact averting a government shutdown, congressional Democrats quietly agreed to a deal with Republicans that shut down enhanced SNAP prematurely: The Department of Health and Human Services extended the COVID emergency declaration until May, but the emergency SNAP enhancements were only allowed to continue through February.

 

The timing couldn’t be worse. Groceries were about 11.3 percent higher in price in January than a year earlier, as food producers bank record profits. And it’s no mystery what will happen next.

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Communion

[Luner45]

Surprised no one has commented but wow this is horrible

[Cyanide]

This is evil

[ClashAndBurn]

On 3/10/2023 at 9:52 PM, Luner45 said:

Surprised no one has commented but wow this is horrible

It's not really a surprise. Lot of ATRLers live a vastly different reality from the rest of the country and have never had to worry about food insecurity, and they denigrate you as a useful idiot of the right if you dare point out that the problem is bipartisan.