On March 31, attorneys representing Pennsylvania Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants secured an important victory when the Biden administration abandoned the Trump administration’s opposition to Families First SNAP Emergency Assistance going to the lowest income households already at the maximum benefit levels.
In fiscal year 2019, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS) reported that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) retailer redemptions approximated $56 billion. In their recently released fiscal year 2020 data, that number dramatically increased to $78 billion. FNS attributes this 40 percent increase in redemptions to the emergency benefits provided in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
If there is one thing that we have learned because of the pandemic, it’s that we could have been better prepared. That’s true at every level: local, state, federal, and international. But there is something that we can do about it, at least at the state level — we can work to ensure that our food system has the coordination to address the challenges that are likely to emerge, and that includes pandemics.
The Enhanced Access to SNAP Act (EATS Act), introduced by Representatives Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), Josh Harder (D-CA), and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), would put college students with lower incomes on an equal footing with other people who would be eligible to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Under H.R. 1919, SNAP would no longer condition eligibility for most people attending college at least half time on performing work study or 20 hours or more per week of outside employment. (Students would still need to meet the income and other qualifications that all SNAP applicants must satisfy.)
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated the economic struggles of those living in poverty in Maryland, many of whom were already being forced to make difficult choices between buying food and paying household expenses.
