The Trump administration proposal to replace half of food stamp benefits with a monthly box of food for program participants “would put families’ basic food security at risk,” says the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “There’s simply no evidence that USDA could achieve such an outcome for 16 million vulnerable households on a monthly basis” with a delivery system that is yet to be designed and that could cost more than the comparatively small $250 million a year allocated for state administrative expenses.
Other USDA food distribution programs are much smaller in scale and have much larger administrative costs, the think tank points out. For example, when the USDA donates commodities to food banks, administrative costs are 14 percent of the cost of the program. Administrative and distribution costs run as high as 33 percent for a program that gives food boxes to low-income elderly people. “Given the distribution of SNAP [food stamp] participants throughout all regions of the country, including rural and remote areas, the budget proposal would be a significant cost shift to state and local government as well as the nonprofit agencies such as food banks that USDA envisions operating this new scheme.”
Besides the lack of a distribution system, the Center on Budget listed five other flaws in the Harvest Box proposal, including the difficulty of additional costs to recipients, the reduction of access to fresh fruits and vegetables, and the adverse impact on local retailers. Some 260,000 stores now redeem food stamps, which are a sizable source of sales.
The Center on Budget report scored other food stamp proposals by the administration, including changes in eligibility rules that would reduce enrollment by 10 percent. “The unemployed, the elderly, and low-income working families with children would bear the brunt of the cuts,” the group says.