The Never-ending SNAP Debate Risks Stalling Another Farm Bill
SNAP has been a point of contention between politicians for decades since the program’s inception. With less than a month to pass a new Farm Bill, can this debate be put to rest in time?
Across the country, Americans are feeling the effects of inflation and rising costs of food, a pressing issue that’s been at the forefront of this year’s presidential election. As both candidates promise to lower grocery prices, it’s clear that food affordability is top of mind for consumers, two-thirds of whom say they feel the effects of inflation most when shopping for food.
While food prices continue to soar, so does food insecurity, making the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as important as ever, says Salaam Bhatti, the SNAP director at the Food Research & Action Center.
SNAP—formerly known as food stamps—provides more than 42 million Americans, including 17 million children, with food benefits to purchase groceries. “SNAP is the nation’s most powerful tool in the fight against hunger, and it’s also a lifeline for millions of families,” says Bhatti.
Despite receiving strong support from the public, SNAP has been a point of contention between Democrats and Republicans since its inception, often leading to legislation-stalling debates between the House and Senate.
This year is no different. With less than a month to pass a new Farm Bill (that was supposed to pass this time last year), the never-ending SNAP debate risks delaying the country’s most important piece of food and farming legislation yet again.
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The idea for food stamps originated during the Great Depression, when farmers were producing more food than the country needed and still millions of people went hungry. This eventually resulted in a food stamp system where people could use blue and orange tickets to “buy” farmers’ crop surpluses.
Although the program ended in1943, it was revived by President John F. Kennedy in 1964 through The Food Stamp Act, which became the basis for SNAP, according toChristopher Bosso, the author of Why SNAP Works: A Political History—and Defense—of the Food Stamp Program.
From the get-go, the program was controversial. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), by 1976, a record-high 18 million people were using food stamps, but concern over the cost of the program prompted Republicans to push for stricter income and work requirements for food stamp recipients, as well as restricted eligibility for students and immigrants. Democrats opposed these changes—an age-old dilemma that still divides politicians to this day.
“Many conservatives—most of them Republican these days—see SNAP as ‘welfare’ and want it limited to only the ‘truly needy,’ with a range of rules designed to force those who seek assistance to prove they are deserving of help,” says Bosso.
Work requirements are a consistent point of disagreement between Democrats and Republicans. The House Farm Bill proposal seeks to implement further work requirements to be eligible for SNAP, such as making high school students who earn an income ineligible. It would also exclude people who are in subsidized employment (jobs where the employer receives government funding to pay employees) from qualifying if their income is high enough, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“I think this really outdated, really dangerous, morality narrative is wrong and ignores the fact that poverty is a systemic issue. It’s not a moral one,” says Leah Eden, executive director of Equity Advocates, a non-profit dedicated to fighting the root causes of food insecurity through policy.
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SNAP is also the Farm Bill’s most expensive program, which naturally makes it controversial in a trillion-dollar legislation. From 2019 to 2023, SNAP spending doubled to $127 billion from $63 billion as unemployment rates dropped to an all-time low and more people experienced food insecurity.
According to a study by the Urban Institute, the extra SNAP spending kept approximately 4.2 million Americans out of poverty in the first three months of 2021, but the increase in spending faced harsh criticism from Republicans who argued that the program takes up too much funding.
In May of this year, the House Agriculture Committee released a Farm Bill draft proposing a $30-billion cut to SNAP over 10 years by preventing the USDA from updating the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP), which determines the amount of SNAP benefits per person outside the cost of inflation. This would be the largest cut to the program in over 30 years.
In 2023, the TFP was adjusted for the first time to reflect the cost of a nutritious, healthy diet in today’s economy. “It was updated to consider the nutritional guidance of today, the food and beverages that are available on the market today and consumer shopping habits of today, as opposed to what was the original comparison of the 1960s,” says Bhatti. (Think fresh fruits and vegetables, instead of potatoes and dried beans.)
After the TFP update in 2023, the average SNAP benefit went to $6.20 from $4.80 per person per day. “Democrats are working to protect that,” says Bhatti of the TFP.
That $30-billion cut proposed in the House Bill would be in part be used to fund an increase in commodity crop (soy, corn, peanuts) pricing, spurring debate in Washington over whether to send money to consumers or producers.
SNAP doesn’t just benefit low-income Americans, it also stimulates economic growth in times of recession, says Eden.
Every new dollar spent on SNAP benefits $1.54 in economic growth, according to a USDA study. In a recession, previous studies have estimated this effect to be as high as $1.80. So, when inflation and unemployment rates are high, SNAP is an economic stimulator.
“Folks are spending these dollars at their local farmers markets and grocery stores, so it’s then benefiting those local farmers and food retailers across the country,” says Eden.
While there’s no evidence that this directly results in lower food prices, money spent at local grocery stores leads to more jobs, higher wages, local economic activity and more resilient communities, she says.
With neither the House or the Senate willing to budge on SNAP cuts, it’s highly unlikely that a new Farm Bill will pass by the Sept. 30 deadline. Some fear there may not even be a draft passed by the end of the year.
But fortunately for the millions of Americans who rely on SNAP, the program will operate as usual even if the Farm Bill expires and a new draft is delayed, which Bhatti says is all the more reason not to compromise on cuts.
“No farm bill is better than a bad farm bill.”
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