Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack bristled at the “notion of picking on SNAP” when millions of Americans are locked into low-wage jobs and need help buying food. “We never have that conversation,” he said on Thursday. Cuts to food stamps have become a frequent suggestion by conservative Republicans in Congress in debates over the farm bill or raising the debt ceiling.
The Biden administration, as it has threatened, will file a USMCA trade complaint against Mexico for banning imports of genetically modified corn used in making tortillas. “That is going to happen,” Vilsack told reporters at the annual USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum. “Fundamental principles” of international trade, specifically relying on science to determine food safety issues, were at stake, he said.
Also at the forum, the USDA projected larger corn, soybean, and wheat crops this year than last that would fetch lower season-average prices. The projections, which assume normal weather and yields, come weeks before the planting season and half a year before the fall harvest. “Weather always has the last say,” said USDA chief economist Seth Meyer.
SNAP benefits will shrink for millions of people on March 1 with the end of so-called emergency allotments that averaged $82 per person, per month and were part of the federal response to the pandemic. The impact “would be a lot more dramatic,” if not for the USDA’s recalculation last summer of the cost of a healthy diet, which increased benefits 27 percent from pre-pandemic levels, said Vilsack as he defended SNAP as a vital aid to the elderly, disabled people, and the working poor.
Someone working full time at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour makes a little more than $15,000 a year, just above the poverty line of $14,580. For a household of three, the poverty line is $24,860 a year.
SNAP outlays would be billions of dollars lower if the minimum wage or wages in general were higher, said Vilsack. “SNAP is half of the conversation” about food security in America, he said, and wages are the other half.
Food stamps cost a record $159.4 billion in fiscal 2022, in part because of higher enrollment due to the pandemic and temporary increases in benefits. SNAP was estimated to cost nearly $140 billion this fiscal year, then drop to an average of $115 billion a year in the near term as benefit levels and participation decline, said the Congressional Budget Office earlier this month.
“Is there really any room left for farmers in the traditional farm bill coalition?” asked Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, a week ago. SNAP outlays doubled during the pandemic, and SNAP would account for the bulk of expenditures for the new farm bill.
Critics say SNAP simply costs more than taxpayers can afford. Among the remedies they have suggested are more stringent work requirements, lower benefit rates, and restrictions on eligibility.
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