Marie D. De Jesús/Houston Chronicle via AP
Houston Food Bank volunteer Cecilie Tindlund directs traffic during a food distribution event at NRG Park, February 21, 2021, in Houston.
The Biden administration has again expanded the social safety net. On the heels of the first two payments of the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), which began in July and will pay up to $3,600 per child to families for at least one year, the administration has now ensured that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly called food stamps) benefits will increase. And with it, hunger will assuredly decrease.
The timing is fortunate, as the pandemic has led to increased rates of hunger across the country in both rural and urban areas. While it is a big move on the part of the executive branch, however, the increase in SNAP benefit levels will not fully help low-income people meet their food needs.
The changes are not a straight increase in benefit levels; instead, they’re due to the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) updating how benefits are actually calculated. SNAP benefit amounts are determined by the USDA’s “Thrifty Food Plan,” a designated basket of goods that’s estimated to meet a family’s nutritional needs in the most low-cost way—i.e., if they need to be thrifty due to their crushing poverty.
The Thrifty Food Plan was introduced in 1975, and since then, it’s only been updated for inflation. There are some assumptions that remain baked into a food plan that was created based on data from the 1960s and 1970s. For instance, that meals are made from scratch, that most meals are eaten in the home, and most importantly, that someone (a woman) is home all day to cook. Which means a healthy diet is out of reach for many modern SNAP participants who need to work outside of the home at their low-wage jobs, and stretch their food stamps.
The bipartisan 2018 Farm Bill required that USDA revisit the Thrifty Food Plan every five years, starting in 2022, and re-evaluate it “based on current food prices, food composition data, consumption patterns, and dietary guidance.” This year, USDA decided against prioritizing cost neutrality, as it did in prior years, and instead created a meaningful update to the Thrifty Food Plan (a move that has been criticized by some House Republicans).
A healthy diet is out of reach for many modern SNAP participants who need to work outside of the home at their low-wage jobs, and stretch their food stamps.
As a result, the food plan has been modernized to reflect the true cost of food in 2021, and with it, SNAP benefits will increase by approximately $36 per month per person.
But even with the increase in benefits, SNAP will not cover all of an individual’s or family’s food needs. The average cost of a meal made by a low-income family today is about $2.41, and the average pre-COVID SNAP benefit per meal was $1.97. According to the Urban Institute, even the maximum pre-COVID benefit doesn’t cover the cost of a low-income meal in 96 percent of U.S. counties.
The gap does decline—but doesn’t disappear—when one considers the changes made to SNAP in response to COVID.
As part of the initial federal pandemic response, SNAP benefits were temporarily boosted via emergency allotment beginning in March 2020. Last December, Congress enacted a 15 percent increase to the maximum benefit nationwide, which has since been extended until September. In a little more than one month’s time, then, that boost will evaporate. Additionally, some states have already voluntarily ended their emergency allotments, declaring the health emergency over.
With the new calculation to benefits taking effect in October, just as the 15 percent increase ends, many SNAP recipients won’t notice huge changes. Instead, the modernization of the Thrifty Food Plan may simply offset, or at least mitigate, the end of the 15 percent SNAP increase.
“It’s not going to feel like it’s as momentous as the percentages [average 25 percent increase] or the overall aggregate spending [an increase of about $20 billion] will have you believe,” says Ellen Vollinger, legal director at the Food Research and Action Center. The average amount of benefits per person each day will increase by about $1.20, from $4.20 to $5.39.
So when the pandemic SNAP boost ends, says Vollinger, we’ll see a “hunger cliff,” especially for people who were used to receiving smaller SNAP benefits that then rose rapidly during the pandemic.
Texas is home to some of the harder-hit counties in terms of increased food insecurity during the pandemic. Hunger increased nationwide, but some counties in Texas that were already vulnerable to high rates of food insecurity saw especially large increases once COVID struck. For example, according to an analysis by Feeding America, a network of U.S. food banks, 29.2 percent of people in Presidio County in Texas were projected to be food-insecure in 2021, compared to an actual 24.2 percent food insecurity rate in 2019. That’s more than a 20 percent increase. Food insecurity in Zavala County was projected to increase almost 25 percent, from a 21.5 percent food insecurity rate to 26.7 percent. Both of these counties are in rural West Texas.
In West Texas, one food bank may serve a number of counties, with food bank workers traveling hours across the desert to reach communities in need. That became even more difficult in the pandemic, says Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, which oversees food banks across the state, as both hunger and the need to isolate increased.
In terms of SNAP benefit size, USDA has now accomplished what executive action can do. For bigger changes, Congress needs to act.
Even during non-pandemic times, food banks cannot serve enough food to feed all of the hungry in the U.S. For every meal that a Feeding America food bank provides, SNAP provides nine. “People come to us when their SNAP benefits run out,” says Cole. She adds that Texas food banks get an uptick of visitors toward the end of the month as SNAP benefits are depleted. Indeed, almost 80 percent of SNAP benefits are used within the first two weeks after they hit an EBT card.
If it needed confirmation of how long SNAP benefits last, USDA got it when it hosted listening sessions with SNAP recipients to inform them of the update to the Thrifty Food Plan. One participant said, “It’s difficult to describe the trauma that results when SNAP benefits have run out and the paycheck is still days away, forcing parents to put their children to bed on empty bellies.”
Nationwide, there’s evidence that hospitalizations increase and student disciplinary infractions rise in a way that corresponds to the SNAP benefit issuance cycle. In other words, when hunger increases, so does its consequences.
That said, the increase in SNAP benefits will certainly impact household purchasing power, and so will encourage some people who are eligible for SNAP but don’t receive it to actually apply. Many people who may be eligible for the program eschew going through the stress of applying for a benefit that may seem small—in part because the application process is a hassle, only exacerbating the stigma already attached to public assistance. Some required application components were waived during the initial months of the pandemic, such as going through an interview with a caseworker (which now is again required in nearly all states).
In terms of SNAP benefit size, USDA has now accomplished what executive action can do. For bigger changes, Congress needs to act.
In its current session, Reps. Jahana Hayes (D-CT) and Alma Adams (D-NC), along with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), introduced the Closing the Meal Gap Act, which would switch the SNAP calculation from using the Thrifty Food Plan to the more adequate Low-Cost Food Plan. Last session, Gillibrand introduced the bill with then-Sen. Kamala Harris. It’s unlikely to pass, but it at least represents one way to raise SNAP benefit levels to an amount that more accurately reflects what Americans actually need to eat. The price difference in the two plans is approximately $195 per month, which roughly meets what families report they need to spend beyond their SNAP benefits to keep food on the table. The Low-Cost Food Plan is already used by bankruptcy courts to determine how much a person needs to spend on food, and should Congress act, it could be used by USDA to draw up SNAP benefit levels too.
All in all, the mosaic of assistance programs that expanded both their benefits and their reach as need rose during the pandemic have mitigated what would have been a much greater increase in poverty and hunger without them. The first payment of the Child Tax Credit ($250 or $300 per kid depending on their age) has already made an impact on food insecurity in families with children. Census Bureau data show a decline in self-reported “food insufficiency” for these families, especially compared to families without children. Almost half of people who received the July CTC payment reported spending it on food. Additionally, in spite of its clunky rollout, the Pandemic EBT program has also assisted in food spending for low-income families with kids, taking the place of school breakfasts and lunches for students in virtual school, as well as the summer meals program for any eligible child.
But the biggest program that fights hunger is SNAP, which is why improving SNAP will make the biggest dent in hunger across the U.S. The changes that USDA has made will go a long way to improving buying power for people who have so little income—these are, after all, historic changes. But SNAP has long been tied to antiquated ideas of food preparation and cost, so a little more history-making is still warranted.
