USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said these changes will make it easier for families to get enough healthy food, and that they could also create jobs and reduce healthcare costs due to preventable disease.
The new Thrifty Food Plan formula plans for SNAP recipients to sometimes make efficiency choices like canned beans over dried ones. For example, while frozen pre-cut vegetables and pre-cooked canned beans may be slightly more expensive than fresh vegetables or dried beans in some cases, they can also take less time for a busy family to prepare. The USDA took both of these complaints into account in formulating its new Thrifty Food Plan. Another challenge, reported by 30% of SNAP recipients, was insufficient time to prepare healthy meals from scratch. The most common hurdle, reported by more than 60% of SNAP recipients, was the high cost of nutritionally dense food. The report stated that nearly 90% of SNAP participants faced barriers to achieving a healthy diet each month. Department of Agriculture suggested this amount was insufficient for most SNAP recipients. Pre-pandemic, the average food stamps payouts broke down to about $1.39 per person, per meal. And while most items on the 46th President’s economic agenda-creating a paid family leave benefit, raising the minimum wage, making childcare more affordable-require Congressional buy-in, this investment, estimated by USDA to cost about $20 billion more annually, does not.Īctivists working to eliminate food insecurity have argued changes to America’s food assistance programs-the largest of which is SNAP-are long overdue. But more broadly, the move to reduce hunger is another way the Biden Administration is trying to grow the size and scope of America’s tattered social safety net.
The re-evaluation of the half-century-old equation means 42 million low-income families will have more cash to spend on groceries each month. (The 2018 Farm Bill mandated that the Thrifty Food Plan be re-evaluated by 2022, regardless of the Administration in power, though Biden asked the USDA to prioritize updating the formula in a January executive order.) It’s also the first time benefits have been raised since 2006.
The shift marks the largest uptick in SNAP benefits since the Thrifty Food Plan was introduced in 1975. The benefit increase is based on a recent re-evaluation of what the government calls its Thrifty Food Plan: a hypothetical assortment of healthy but low-price groceries needed to meet the nutritional needs of a four-person family with two adults and two children.
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