Currently browsing posts about: SNAP

I made a mistake and did not get this one scheduled correctly.  I’m trying again to get it posted (sigh, my error).

The USDA’s Economic Research Service (what’s left of it) has released its annual report on food assistance, which cost $142 billion in 2024 for all of the 16 programs.

This is a decrease from the $168 billion spent in 2023.

Food assistance accounts for two-thirds of USDA’s budget.

SNAP accounts for 70% of USDA’s food assistance budget.  Its 14% (inflation-adjusted) decline from 2023 “was larger than for any other year on record.”  And that’s before this year’s proposed cuts.

SNAP participation and costs track closely with poverty and food insecurity; when they go up, SNAP goes up.

Comment: The best way to cut SNAP?  Cut poverty.

__________

Forthcoming November 11, 2025: What To Eat Now

I was delighted to see this opinion piece in Forbes by Hank Cardello, who writes very much from the food industry’s point of view: The One Big Beautiful Bill To MAHA: Drop Dead.

The so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” now moving through the Senate proposes sharp cuts to SNAP (food stamps), WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) and Medicaid—programs that are lifelines for low-income families. The contradiction is glaring: How can one branch of government promote healthier eating while another branch strips away the supports that make that possible?

“The bill handicaps MAHA’s goals,” he says, pointing out that reducing benefits for these programs can only “increase food insecurity, making it more difficult for people to afford nutritious food and sustain their health.”

This, he says, is

a political blunder…affordable food has more power to sway voters than tariffs or slogans. Cut these programs, and we widen the gap between what families should eat and what they can eat….Medicaid and SNAP aren’t just social programs—they’re long-term investments in public health and economic stability.

He suggests three ways to make MAHA a reality:

• Expand SNAP eligibility to include struggling working families just above the poverty line.
• Recognize food policy as a voter issue, not just a health issue.
• Lawmakers should stop pretending nutrition policy can succeed without social policy alignment.

COMMENT

Wow.  I could not have said this better myself.  What this tells me is that at least some segments of the food industry fully understand that making people too poor to buy their products is not good for business, let alone for society.  Cardullo always has intelligent things to say about food issues, even when I don’t always agree with them.  On this one, we are completely aligned.  Thanks Hank.

The press release: USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins Approves First Ever State Waiver to Restrict Soda and Energy Drinks from Food Stamps in Nebraska

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins today signed the first-ever waiver to amend the statutory definition of food for purchase for Nebraska’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Effective January 1, 2026, taxpayers will no longer be subsidizing the purchase of soda or energy drinks in the State of Nebraska.

Nebraska governor Jim Pillen put it this way:

There’s absolutely zero reason for taxpayers to be subsidizing purchases of soda and energy drinks. SNAP is about helping families in need get healthy food into their diets, but there’s nothing nutritious about the junk we’re removing with today’s waiver. I’m grateful to have worked with Secretary Rollins and the Trump Administration to get this effort across the finish line. It is a tremendous step toward improving the health and well-being of our state. We have to act because we can’t keep letting Nebraskans starve in the midst of plenty.

USDA Secretary Rollins then announced approval of SNAP soda waivers in Indiana and Iowa.

On Secretary Rollins’ first full day in office, she sent a letter to the nation’s governors (PDF, 88.8 KB), outlining her vision for the Department and inviting them to participate in a new “Laboratories of Innovation” initiative to create bold solutions to long-ignored challenges.

More are sure to follow.

Full disclosure: I was a member of the advisory committee for SNAP to Health, a project of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, chaired by Dr. Susan Blumenthal.  We released our report at a congressional briefing in 2012 (here’s what I said about it at the time.  Alas, most of the links no longer work, but here’s the report).

One of our recommendations:

Provide States with Flexibility to Evaluate Fresh Approaches to SNAP The USDA should grant states greater flexibility for waivers to pilot test and evaluate program changes in SNAP that would improve nutrition (e.g. pilot projects to assess the feasibility of incentivizing the purchase of healthy foods and/or limiting the purchase of high-calorie, nutrient-poor products with
SNAP benefits).

Our commission favored pilot projects to remove sodas from SNAP, but not at the expense of overall benefits.  We cited evidence that SNAP recipients would not necessarily object to having sodas removed; they could still buy sodas using their own money.

Historical note: the original plan for food stamps, the forerunner of SNAP, was to have sodas on the list of foods that could not be purchased with benefits.  The soda industry and retailers succeeded in lobbying to keep sodas in the program.

Guess who is objecting to the waivers: soda trade associations and retailers.  They say the new exclusions are “misguided” and could “create chaos and confusion.”

Food assistance advocates have long argued that restrictions are condescending and are in any case a cover for cutting SNAP benefits.

They are not wrong about that.  The Trump administration has cut SNAP benefits by 20% or so.

Will budget cuts make SNAP recipients healthy again?  I doubt it.

As for the waivers: I hope researchers in these states are lining up.

I want to know what effect these restrictions will have on overall SNAP food and drink purchases, drink purchases using their own funds, and overall health.  And I particularly want to know how SNAP recipients feel about the changes.

Resource

USDA’s tracking page on SNAP waivers

The effects of all the proposed budget cuts, clearly aimed at cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of the poor, will be painful, but two are especially ironic given the Making America Healthy Again effort.

The first were the farm-to-school programs “in alignment with President Donald Trump’s executive order ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government and DEI Programs and Preferencing.’” These cuts were especially stupid because the programs did not cost much but were a demonstrably a win/win.  Schools got fresh produce, and small farmers got paid.

Now we have a second tiny program to lose funding, SNAP-ED, more formally the USDA’s National Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program.

Here’s what AI says about this program (not a bad summary, actually).

SNAP-Ed stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education. It is a federally funded, public health program designed to help low-income individuals and families make healthy food choices and adopt active lifestyles within their budget. SNAP-Ed provides nutrition education and promotes healthy food choices, while also supporting physical activity.

Goal: SNAP-Ed aims to improve the likelihood that people eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will make healthy choices within a limited budget and adopt physically active lifestyles.

Evidence-Based: The program uses evidence-based nutrition education and obesity prevention strategies.

Federally Funded: It is a grant program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

State and Local Partnerships: SNAP-Ed works with state and local organizations to deliver its services.

Focus Areas: SNAP-Ed initiatives include nutrition education (Classes on healthy eating, budgeting, meal planning, basic cooking, and food safety), social marketing campaigns (Community-based campaigns to promote healthy eating and physical activity), and efforts to improve community policies and environments.

Although AI didn’t mention it, SNAP-ED works.  See: SNAP-Ed: The Transition of the Nation’s Largest Nutrition Education Program Into a Pillar of the Public Health Infrastructure

The SNAP-Ed program has demonstrated that its comprehensive approaches are primed to address public health crises along with its ongoing role of helping to eliminate nutrition-related health disparities. Despite the program’s public health focus, community-wide scope, and capacity for sector-level change, SNAP-Ed funding has been static for more than decade, even as its audience and mission have doubled. Funding for SNAP-Ed was only 0.4% of the total 2021 SNAP budget, or $5.15 annually for each of the nearly 90 million people in its audience—roughly the cost of a bag of oranges or potatoes.

The cost of this program is roughly half a billion dollars a year, not even a rounding error in the federal budget.  Cutting it does no good for anyone, undercuts the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) agenda, and is thoughtless and unnecessary.

Resources

• House Agriculture Committee — Reconciliation bill FY 2025
• Section-By-Section (See: 10011)
• One-Page Overview: Restoring Accountability & Prioritizing Work
• One-Page Summary: Renewing the American Dream: Prioritizing Work in SNAP
• SNAP Integrity and Farm Security Full Committee Markup (livestream link)

Thanks to Jim Krieger of Healthy Food America, for sending this one.

According to the Daily Beast: MAGA Influencers Caught Red-Handed Shilling for Big Soda

A string of MAGA influencers appear to have been caught taking money from Big Soda to undermine the government’s attempts to ban people from buying soda with food stamps.  Last week, a host of influential online pro-Trump personalities…raised eyebrows on X when they all appeared to abruptly change their views on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to pass legislation which would ban food-stamp recipients from spending their money on soft drinks and junk food….conservative journalist Nick Sortor posted an expose of the offending posts side-by-side on X, alongside claims they had been paid to adopt a pro-soda stance by a social media PR company named Influenceable….“Not a SINGLE ONE of them disclosed they were paid for these posts, which led readers to believe a general SODA BAN was in the works.”

According to The Daily Wire: Soda Lobby Group American Beverage Denies Paying Influencers To Fight SNAP Restrictions

In a statement sent to The Daily Wire on Tuesday, ABA President and CEO Kevin Keane further echoed the denial, saying it had conducted a “thorough vetting” and is “confident” that it was not involved in the effort.

Whew.  What is this about?

The issue of adding sugar-sweetened beverages to the short list of food items that cannot be bought with SNAP benefits (Alcohol, Cigarettes, prepared foods, medicines, supplements) is a difficult one, splitting some public health advocates from some anti-hunger advocates and forging unexpected political alliances.

RFK Jr’s MAHA movement wants sodas out of SNAP.  The MAHA arguments:

• Sodas contain sugars (lots) but no other nutrients.
• Drinking a lot of them correlates with poor health.
• SNAP recipients buy a lot of soda.
• SNAP benefit are not taxed, making the cost of sodas cheaper for them in some states.
• SNAP recipients could still buy sodas with their own (non-SNAP) money.
• The WIC program specifies which foods (all of them healthy) recipients can buy with their benefits; it works fine.

Arguments against:

• Poor people should be able to eat just as unhealthfully as everyone else.
• Blocking them from buying sodas is condescending.
• Doing this removes choice and is unfair.
• A ban will hurt the profits of the soda industry and retailers who sell sodas.

For years, public health advocates and some states have called for pilot projects (“waivers”) to see how removing sodas might work.  The USDA has always rejected such petitions.

I favor pilot projects, in part because of what I learned as a member of the SNAP to Health Commission, and also because of the letters I received after publication of Soda Politics.  SNAP recipients wrote me that they viewed their benefits as a license to buy junk food and would welcome restrictions.  They would not buy as much soda if they had to pay for it with non-SNAP funds.

The new USDA Secretary says she will agree to waivers.  Good.  Let’s try this and see how it works.

Deeply buried in the 942 pages (I’m not kidding) of the House version of the Farm Bill is this item in the Nutrition title.

TITLE IV—NUTRITION

Subtitle A—Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP]

SEC. 4101. DECLARATION OF POLICY

Congress recognizes the supplemental nutrition assistance program allows low-income households to obtain supplemental food for an active, healthy life. Such assistance should also be designed to prevent—

(1) diet-caused chronic disease, including—
(A) obesity;
(B) diabetes;
(C) hypertension;
(D) heart disease; and
(E) cancer;
(2) disability;
(3) premature death;
(4) unsustainable health care costs; and
(5) undermining of military readiness.

Accordingly, it is also the policy of the Congress that the Secretary should administer the supplemental nutrition assistance program in a manner that will provide participants, especially children, access to foods essential to optimal health and well-being.

Comment: I can’t think of a better statement of the need for policies to address chronic disease risks in the population.  I’ve never seen anything like this before.  It’s thrilling, and deserves wildly enthusiastic support from the public health community.

It is not getting it.  On the contrary.

This is disappointing, but we are talking here about the Farm Bill (see my Politico explanation,  “The farm bill drove me insane).

To oversimplify: The Farm Bill is a shotgun marriage between Big Ag (Republicans) and SNAP (Democrats).

If Republicans want to support Big Ag, they have to vote for SNAP.   If Democrats want to support SNAP, they have to vote for farm supports.  This requires extreme compromise and nose-holding.

So why is the public health nutrition community opposed to a bill that includes such a strong statement of public health policy?

For this, see another item buried in the Nutrition title.

Subtitle D—Other Miscellaneous Provisions
SEC. 12401. THRIFTY FOOD PLAN.

‘Thrifty food plan’ means the diet required to feed a family of 4 persons …based on relevant market baskets that shall only be changed pursuant to paragraph (3)….

(3) REEVALUATION OF MARKET BASKETS…(C) COST NEUTRALITY.—The Secretary shall not increase the cost of the thrifty food plan based on a reevaluation or update under this paragraph.

Translation: The Thrifty Food Plan, the basis for setting the benefit level for SNAP, cannot be increased.  The hunger advocacy community estimates that because of inflation, this will decrease SNAP benefits by $30 billion over the next years.

For the nutrition advocacy community, this is the line in the sand. With this clause in the proposed bill, they have to oppose the whole thing.

Neither of these clauses is in the Senate version.

My proposal: Put section 4101 in the final bill and eliminate 12401.

Hey, I can dream…

[Thanks to Jerry Mande of Nourish Science for keeping me up on Farm Bill progress]

Every five years or so, we have to deal with another farm bill.  Like the dietary guidelines, also every five years, the farm bill doesn’t really change much.  The arguments about both don’t change either.  So here we go again.

And just so you know where i”m coming from on this, here are my classic thoughts on the matter:  “The farm bill drove me insane.”

A quick summary of why it does: it’s a collection of dozens if not hundreds, of programs, each with its own constituency and lobbyists, and too complicated for outsiders (like me) to understand.  The elephant in the farm bill is SNAP, which takes up 80% or so of the funding and accounts for most of the fights.  What SNAP is doing there is a long story, but don’t even think about removing it; take it out and neither food assistance nor farm supports would have enough votes to pass.

On May 1, Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee introduced her version of  this year’s delayed farm bill: The Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act.

A full summary of the bill is here. (Note: it’s vague on details)

A section-by-section is here. (Note: it’s 94 pages)

Title summaries

• Certainty for All Farmers
• Conservation
• Trade Promotion and International Food Aid
• Nutrition
• Credit
• Rural Development
• Research
• Forestry
• Energy
• Horticulture
• Miscellaneous

The House Committee’s counter-proposal is available here.

It’s too early for me to get into the weeds on this.

On SNAP (the Nutrition title), some advocates will be pushing for making it healthier as well as increasing benefits.

On farm supports (Certainty for All Farmers title, and others), advocates for animal rights, young farmers, and Black farmers will want more than they have received in the past.  Most of what’s in the farm bill goes to support feed for animals and fuel for automobiles.

On “specialty crops,” (translation: food for people)  in the Horticulture title, I was amused to see a $100 million increase per year, which sounds like a lot but is barely a rounding error in a bill costing $100 billion or more a year.

The farm bill ought to be an opportunity to bring agricultural policy in line with health policy and to focus on producing food healthy for people and the planet.

Well, the details are still to come, and reconciliation of the two versions is still a long way off .  Stay tuned.

Every now and then a headline makes me gasp:

Deena Shankar’s article in Bloomberg News begins:

It’s been just about a year since the US government slashed additional pandemic-related food-stamp benefits, and some of the companies that make and sell food are seeing that hit their sales.

As she explains,

Enhanced benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, ended last February, meaning families and individuals saw monthly cuts of $95 to $250 or more in what they received. Families with kids lost at the high end of the spectrum, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute.

Never mind the effects of reduced benefits on low-income families.

packaged-food giant Kraft Heinz Co. cited the reduction in benefits as a major headwind that the company and the industry faced in 2023. “We saw some challenges in our mac-and-cheese business,” Chief Executive Officer Carlos Abrams-Rivera said on an earnings call. “Frankly, it’s a business that is driven disproportionately by our SNAP exposure.”

How’s that for a gasp-inducing statement.  SNAP recipients are the core customers for this product.

If you want to know about inequities in the US food system, start here.

Kraft Mac & Cheese exemplifies cheap ultra-processed food.

Walmart sells five boxes for $4.88, less than a dollar a box.

For that, you are supposed to get three servings per box, but the whole box adds up to:

• 750 calories
• 1680 mg sodium,(4.2 grams of salt)
• 27 grams sugars

And what’s in this?

ENRICHED MACARONI (WHEAT FLOUR, DURUM FLOUR, NIACIN, FERROUS SULFATE [IRON], THIAMIN MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], FOLIC ACID), CHEESE SAUCE MIX (WHEY, MILKFAT, SALT, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SODIUM TRIPHOSPHATE, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF TAPIOCA FLOUR, CITRIC ACID, LACTIC ACID, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, CALCIUM PHOSPHATE, WITH PAPRIKA, TURMERIC, AND ANNATTO ADDED FOR COLOR, ENZYMES, CHEESE CULTURE).

Walmart sells a pound of carrots for $1.38.

There is something seriously wrong with a food system that makes a 750-calorie Mac and Cheese product so much cheaper than a pound of carrots.