Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Food Assistance

House Agriculture Committee Proposal Would Cut 2 Million Off Food Stamps & Reduce Benefits for More Than 44 Million Others

The House Agriculture Committee, which the House-approved budget requires to quickly produce $33 billion in savings over the next decade, approved a proposal on April 18 that would obtain the entire amount from cuts to SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. The cuts — which would come on top of another proposal in the House budget to cut SNAP by $133 billion over the next decade and convert it to a block grant — would reduce or eliminate benefits for all SNAP households, including the poorest.

Chad Stone Statement on Pending House Tax Cut & House Committee SNAP Benefit Cuts

"The $8 billion in SNAP cuts over the next year would do more damage to economic growth and job creation than any stimulus that the $46 billion in tax cuts could generate, according to standard 'multiplier' or 'bang-for-the-buck' estimates like those from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Moody’s Analytics."

Robert Greenstein Testimony: Strengthening the Safety Net

“The safety net is far from perfect and contains areas that merit strengthening. Yet as a result of a series of mostly bipartisan decisions over several decades, it is functioning far better than is often understood.” Read more

Related:

Ryan Budget Would Slash SNAP Funding by $134 Billion over Ten Years: Low-Income Households in All States Would Feel Sharp Effects

Chartbook: SNAP Helps Struggling Families Put Food On The Table

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the nation’s most important anti-hunger program.

This chartbook highlights some of the key characteristics of the approximately 46 million people using the program as well as trends and data on program administration and use.

Part I: SNAP is highly responsive to poverty and the economy
Part II: Benefits are modest
Part III: SNAP serves very vulnerable people
Part IV: SNAP supports working families and those unable to work
Part V: With some important exceptions, SNAP reaches most eligible people
Part VI: SNAP is efficient and effective
Part VII: SNAP is an important public/private partnership

Related:

Topics

Basics

The Food Stamp Program, the nation’s most important anti-hunger program, helps roughly 35 million low-income Americans to afford a nutritionally adequate diet. WIC — short for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — provides nutritious foods, information on healthy eating, and health care referrals to about 8 million low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and children under five. The School Lunch and School Breakfast programs provide free and reduced-price meals that meet federal nutritional standards to over 22 million school children from low-income families.

Policy Basics:
- Introduction to the Food Stamp Program

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The Center designs and promotes polices to make the Food Stamp Program more adequate to help recipients afford an adequate diet, more accessible to eligible families and individuals, and easier for states to administer. We also help states design their own food stamp programs for persons ineligible for the federal program. Our work on the WIC program includes ensuring that sufficient federal funds are provided to serve all eligible applicants and on helping states contain WIC costs. Our work on child nutrition programs focuses on helping states and school districts implement recent changes in how they determine a child's eligibility for free or reduced-priced school meals.