Mile-long line for food a warning as benefits end
Over past year, 18 states ended official states of emergency and rescinded COVID-19 food benefits; the rest end in March
HAZEL GREEN, Ky. — As he claimed the first spot in a mile-long line for free food in the Appalachian foothills, Danny Blair vividly recalled receiving the letter announcing his pandemic-era benefit to help buy groceries was about to be slashed.
Kentucky lawmakers had voted to end the state’s health emergency last spring, by default cutting food stamp benefits created to help vulnerable Americans like Blair weather the worst of COVID-19. Instead of $200 a month, he would get just $30.
He crumpled up the letter and threw it on the floor of his camper.
“I thought, ‘Wow, the government is trying to kill us now,’ ” said Blair, 63, who survives on his Social Security disability check and lives in mobile home with his wife after their house burned down five years ago. “They are going to starve us out.”
To avoid that from happening, Blair and his wife hop into their truck twice a month at 4 a.m. to ensure they get a few staples at the Hazel Green Food Project’s giveaway. On a recent Friday, they waited nine hours until local prisoners on work duty started loading bags of meat and vegetables, potato chips and cookies into vehicles in one of the nation’s most impoverished communities.
From the front to the back of the line, the sea of despair and hardship along this desolate Kentucky highway foreshadowed what may be in store for millions of Americans as the federal government ended the remaining pandemic increase in monthly food stamp benefits last week.
The latest cuts to one of the nation’s vital social safety net programs will limit how much food an estimated 31 million Americans will be able to afford each month, testing whether the Biden administration and state leaders can take away assistance without exacerbating a growing food insecurity crisis.
Over the past year, 18 states, including Kentucky, ended official states of emergency and rescinded the COVID-19 food benefit. For the other 32 states as well as the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam, Congress mandated in December the extra help sunset in March.
The pullback of federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits is part of a broader effort by the government to unwind some of the billions of dollars spent to help protect jobs or boost incomes for Americans during the pandemic. Over the past 18 months, the federal government has halted enhanced unemployment benefits and ended pandemic-era child tax credits. It is in the process of rolling back an adjustment to Medicaid that boosted enrollment, putting millions of Americans at risk of losing coverage.
Collectively, the return to pre-pandemic policies could pose a setback to President Joe Biden’s efforts to slash poverty while building a healthier and more sustainable middle class.
“We saw positive benefits from this and less hardship, including for families with children,” said Dottie Rosenbaum, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who noted there was a steep decline in childhood poverty rates in 2021. “We can expect that to reverse now.”
For those waiting in line for food in Kentucky, the last year has been jarring. Some said they can now only afford to eat once a day. Others limit expensive items like meat for specific family members like growing teenage boys. All described feeling hunger.
Authorized by Congress in the early months of the COVID-19 crisis, the emergency SNAP allotments allowed 41 million recipients to receive an increase in food stamp benefits, helping families at a time when businesses were shuttering, schools closed and uncertainty abounded.
The extra cash for groceries varied based on considerations such as income level and amount of aid received before the pandemic hit, but all were entitled to the maximum allowance for their particular situation. For many families, that translated to significantly fuller grocery carts. Even recipients receiving the largest monthly benefit available before the pandemic were granted an extra $95 a month.
The average SNAP recipient’s benefits are expected to be cut about $90 per month, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. An even greater reduction is looming for many senior citizens and the working poor who get assistance from other government programs and will qualify for less.
Many senior citizens on food stamps in Kentucky saw their monthly food benefit drop from $281 to $22 last year after the state emergency ended in May, according to Feeding Kentucky.
With Kentucky serving as a warning beacon, social services agencies and charities across the country are now preparing for a summer of misery as food prices continue to soar due to inflation.
“We are bracing, and our agencies, member food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens are not prepared for what is about to hit them,” said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Food Banks, which includes about 3,600 charities. “This reduction, and end of the public health emergency, could not be coming at a worse time.”
Hamler-Fugitt expects many of the state’s 1.5 million recipients will also be scrambling to find food assistance, adding she projects the benefit reductions will remove $120 million from Ohio’s retail economy each month.
“We estimate we would have to increase our distribution by 15 times to even begin to address this, and we don’t have the resources to do that,” Hamler-Fugitt said. “So hunger rates are going to increase among our seniors, and families, and our children are going to fall behind academically because they are not going to be able to concentrate on empty stomachs.”