More Americans lose SNAP as Congress weighs food stamps’ future

Filed 1h ago · Via Stateline · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Chas Goodall · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

New USDA data shows more than 330,000 Americans lost SNAP benefits between May and June alone, part of a decline of over 5 million enrollees since last July's tax and spending law took effect. The law tightened eligibility, ended some work-requirement exemptions, and shifted administrative costs onto states.

A Food Research and Action Center analysis found participation fell in every state except Alaska, with Arizona enrollment down more than half, Louisiana down 22%, and Illinois down 20%. The Senate Agriculture Committee has advanced a farm bill delaying the cost shift by one year, short of the two-year delay Democrats sought.

States face a harder deadline: under the current proposal they'd have until October 2028 to lower payment error rates before shouldering costs themselves, a shift for which many lack even basic budgeting systems in place. Advocacy groups are pushing for outright reversal rather than a delay, calling the current relief insufficient.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A one-year delay on a five-year problem is the kind of math that only works if you're the one setting the clock. Cutting food aid while grocery prices climb isn't a technical adjustment, it's a choice, and somebody down the line is going to feel it in a grocery line, not a committee room. The folks writing the farm bill aren't the ones skipping the breakfast.

Source: Read the original at Stateline → Scored: Grim League · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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