The last revision, in 2006, assumed an adult woman would spend $18.58 a month on low-fat milk and fewer than 50 cents on cheese, according to an analysis by Parke Wilde of Tufts University.Ĭritics say multiple features of the department’s model drove such unrealistic results. But with costs fixed, they became less attempts to estimate budgets than efforts to show it was theoretically possible to eat at the predetermined level. Periodic updates were meant to reflect changing habits and dietary guidance. With penalties for early retirement, her income fell by three-quarters.įirst issued in 1975 at costs set in 1962, the Thrifty Food Plan specifies a group of foods by quantity that provide a suitable diet. Cruz, 58, spent nearly three decades as a government meat inspector, living a middle-class life until the worsening health of a disabled son forced her to quit and care for him. To glimpse the limits of a SNAP budget, consider the challenges of Betsy Cruz, a single mother in rural Gilbert, S.C., who is new to poverty. “The data on the inadequacy of the Thrifty Food Plan is pretty weak,” said Angela Rachidi of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. They also say the aid would last longer if the needy spent it better, citing research showing nearly 10 percent goes to sweetened drinks. Opponents of a benefit increase say the program is meant to supply only part, not all, of a household’s diet, as suggested by its formal name: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Former Representative Mike Conaway, a Republican and chief author of the 2018 law, said it was written “assuming the precedent of cost-neutrality would be followed” and warned the administration against “unilateral overreach.” Before the plan was even released, two Republican legislators called for a watchdog to review it.
“They deserve credit.”īut as hints of the benefit increase spread last week, Republicans pushed back.
“A majority of Republicans in the Senate and House voted for this,” Mr. In allowing the plan’s value to rise, officials argued they were following the 2018 law, which required new standards but did not specify whether costs should stay the same. More than three-quarters of households exhaust their benefits in the first half of the monthly cycle, and researchers have linked subsequent food shortages to problems as diverse as increased hospital admissions, more school suspensions and lower SAT scores. The move does not require congressional approval, and unlike the large pandemic-era expansions, which are starting to expire, the changes are intended to last.įor at least a decade, critics of the benefits have said they were too low to provide an adequate diet. All 42 million people in the program will receive additional aid. Under rules to be announced on Monday and put in place in October, average benefits will rise more than 25 percent from prepandemic levels.
WASHINGTON - The Biden administration has revised the nutrition standards of the food stamp program and prompted the largest permanent increase to benefits in the program’s history, a move that will give poor people more power to fill their grocery carts but add billions of dollars to the cost of a program that feeds one in eight Americans.