Enrollment in food stamps, the premiere U.S. antihunger program, soared after the 2008-09 recession, prompting conservative lawmakers to say middle-class taxpayers could not afford the program. With the economic recovery, the Congressional Budget Office estimates food stamp participation this year will be the lowest since 2010 and will decline annually through 2027.
In its mid-year budget outlook, the CBO says an average 42.4 million people will receive food stamps this year, dropping to 40.7 million in fiscal 2018 and to 32.2 million in 2027, the lowest enrollment since 2008, when financial turmoil put the United States into recession. Benefits, paid monthly, would total $70.2 billion this year.
Food stamps were a pivotal issue of debate during the 2014 farm bill — Tea Party-influenced Republicans unsuccessfully sought the largest cuts in a generation by restricting eligibility — and could be again in the 2018 farm bill. By far, food stamps are the largest USDA program and the largest line item in the farm bill.
The Trump administration has proposed stricter eligibility rules for food stamps as part of broad-scale welfare reform “to replace dependency with the dignity of work.” Tighter eligibility rules would generate $50 billion of the $193 billion in savings over a decade that are sought from food stamps by the White House. The bulk of the savings would come from requiring states to pay 25 percent of benefits.
While enrollment is forecast to decline steadily in the decade ahead, the cost of the program would be relatively unchanged, ranging from $67 billion to $71 billion a year. Food prices, which fell in 2017, are forecast to rise modestly in coming years, triggering larger monthly benefits that offset the falling number of recipients. Benefits are based on a formula that includes the annual food inflation rate.
Earlier this month, the head of the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said that with the decline in caseloads, food stamp costs would be a smaller share of the U.S. economy. Food stamps “won’t contribute to the nation’s long-term fiscal problem,” wrote think tank leader Robert Greenstein. “Though critics suggest that SNAP encourages dependency, it’s now a program mainly for low-income workers and their families, along with people who aren’t expected to work: children, the elderly, and individuals with serious disabilities.”
Food stamp enrollment was a record 47.7 million people, with a cost of nearly $80 billion, in fiscal 2013. The House, for the first time, defeated a farm bill in 2013 in a tug-of-war between budget-cutting Republicans and Democratic defenders of the program. The dispute delayed passage of the farm bill until early 2014, far later than the the original goal of enacting a broad-spectrum farm bill before the end of 2012.