This month, an estimated 16 million households receiving SNAP benefits in 32 states and Washington, DC, will see their benefits decrease by at least $95 monthly, according to estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research and policy institute.
On average, recipients will lose between 30% and 40% of their SNAP benefits, said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research.
The decrease comes with the end of a Covid-19 emergency policy that increased SNAP benefits to the maximum level for every recipient. In 18 states, the additional benefits had already expired.
States with more households closer to the edge of that benefit “cliff” will see the largest average loss of benefits. At least four states, Hawaii, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, will see average household benefit losses of more than $200 each month.
But even for the households losing the minimum increase of $95, the decrease represents a substantial change to their monthly benefits. The impact will be felt “across the board,” Dottie Rosenbaum, director of federal SNAP policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told CNN.
Although every SNAP participant will be affected, food scarcity does not affect every family equally. Black households and households with children are more likely to experience food scarcity, according to data from the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.
The emergency allotments had a clear impact: Whitmore Schanzenbach estimates they reduced food insufficiency by 9%.
With the end of this “temporary boost,” Rosenbaum says families already feeling the pressures of inflation are going to face more difficulty affording groceries.
In 2020 and 2021, food insecurity remained close to 2019 levels of about 10%, after…
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