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Utility costs are rising across the country at a rate that many find unsustainable.1 For many households with low incomes, this means making tough decisions, choosing between putting food on the table and other essential household needs such as heating their homes during the winter months. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a critical program for lifting households out of poverty through a monthly benefit dedicated for food and beverage purchases, accounts for this decision by allowing households to deduct part of their utilities costs through a standard utility allowance, which varies from state to state. A new regulation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) makes an update to that allowance that will impact SNAP households.

Several temporary SNAP improvements that have mitigated food hardship during the COVID-19 crisis terminate whenever that PHE ends.  A PHE termination threatens to result in a significant “hunger cliff” for millions of people. In addition to other relief that expires, most SNAP participants will lose $82 a month in SNAP benefits.

This two-part blog summarizes the array of SNAP aid tied to the duration of that PHE declaration, makes a case for maintaining it, and outlines priority actions to permanently strengthen SNAP’s ability to fight hunger and support a more equitable economic recovery.

The responses of Propel SNAP customers surveyed in November 2021 and recent data analyses reported by The New York Times underscore the precarious financial situation many low-income households face. This is even as temporary SNAP benefit boosts, monthly advance Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments, and other federal initiatives have helped mitigate household hardship and stimulate the economy during COVID-19. With some federal aid payments slated to sunset, the implications for policymakers are significant.

Households with low incomes face hard choices between paying for food and paying for other basics such as shelter and medicine. Those choices will get even harder for participants when the COVID-19 health emergency ends and, with it, the SNAP Emergency Allotments that have boosted benefits temporarily. Most SNAP participants will lose an average of $82 a month.

A SNAP deductions strategy should be an important part of addressing that looming “hunger cliff.”

As of mid-November 2021, 40 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have been approved to continue EAs for all SNAP households. The statutory authority for those issuances, however, will end when pandemic-related health emergency declarations end.
At that point, unless Congress takes action, all SNAP households will revert to traditional program calculations. On average, SNAP households in the formerly EA states will lose $82 per month in SNAP benefits.