US: States Scale Back Food Stamp Benefits Even As Prices Soar: AP News

[appalachiablue]

- Tara Kramer in her apartment with her cat Busy, April 8, 2022, in Des Moines, Iowa. Month by month, more of the roughly 40 million Americans who get help buying food through the federal SNAP program are seeing their benefits plunge even as the nation struggles with the biggest increase in food costs in decades.
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- AP News, April 16, 2022. Ed.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Month by month, more of the roughly 40 million Americans who get help buying groceries through the federal food stamp program are seeing their benefits plunge even as the nation struggles with the biggest increase in food costs in decades. The payments to low-income individuals and families are dropping as governors end COVID-19 disaster declarations and opt out of an ongoing federal program that made their states eligible for dramatic increases in SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps.

The U.S. Depart. of Agriculture began offering the increased benefit in April 2020 in response to surging unemployment after the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the country. The result is that depending on the politics of a state, individuals and families in need find themselves eligible for significantly different levels of help buying food. Nebraska took the most aggressive action anywhere in the country, ending the emergency benefits four months into the pandemic in July 2020 in a move GOP Gov. Pete Ricketts said was necessary to “show the rest of the country how to get back to normal.”

Since then, nearly a dozen states with Republican leadership have taken similar action, with Iowa this month being the most recent place to slash the benefits. Benefits also will be cut in Wyoming & Kentucky in the next month. Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota & Tennessee have also scaled back the benefits. Republican leaders argue that the extra benefits were intended to only temporarily help people forced out of work by the pandemic. Now that the virus has eased, they maintain, there is no longer a need to offer the higher payments at a time when businesses in most states are struggling to find enough workers.

But the extra benefits also help out families in need at a time of skyrocketing prices for food. Recipients receive at least $95 per month under the program, but some individuals & families typically eligible for only small benefits can get hundreds of dollars in extra payments each month. The entire program would come to a halt if the federal government decides to end its public health emergency, though the Biden administration so far hasn’t signaled an intention to do so. For Tara Kramer, the decision by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds to end the emergency payments starting April 1 meant her monthly SNAP benefit plunged from $250 in March to $20 in April. She has a genetic disorder that can cause intense pain & said the extra money enabled her to buy healthier food that made her feel better & helped her live a more active life...

- More, https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-nebraska-iowa-des-moines-4ff5e0d51f61e6704f44dfc31279376a

[Autumn]

1. Businesses first, people last.

[AllaN01Bear]

2. and yet the rs can pay their buddy bezos with this rocket billions and billions of $

[SamKnause]

3. It started this month in Ohio.

$234.00 per month to $19.00 per month.

[2naSalit]

4. Because cruelty is the point.

They get off on it.

[left-of-center2012]

5. That affects me

76 years old with severe COPD living on social security and I go back to $45 a month on food stamps.