Households with very low incomes will be eligible for an additional $95 a month or more in emergency allotments of food stamps, said the Biden administration. The additional aid to an estimated 25 million people would amount to $1 billion a month nationwide and ends a dispute over pandemic aid that began in the Trump era.
“The emergency SNAP increases authorized by Congress last year were not being distributed equitably and the poorest households, who have the least ability to absorb the economic shock brought about by Covid, received little to no emergency benefit increases,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week. “Today’s actions will provide much-needed support for those who need it most.”
The Families First coronavirus package allowed emergency allotments for SNAP recipients of “not greater than the applicable maximum monthly amount.” The Trump administration interpreted this to mean recipients already receiving at or near the maximum monthly amount would not qualify for an emergency allotment. An estimated 40 percent of recipients already received the maximum benefit, so they did not receive any additional help.
Lawsuits in Pennsylvania and California challenged the USDA interpretation. The USDA reached an agreement with Community Legal Services in Philadelphia on Thursday that would release $712 million in emergency SNAP payments to the poorest Pennsylvania households, reported Law360. U.S. district judge John Younge, who was handling the case, said last fall that USDA’s interpretation was illogical. The Washington Post said that USDA also settled the California suit on Thursday.
The Biden administration viewed the phrase “not greater than the applicable maximum monthly amount” to be a limit on the size of emergency allotments, rather than the Trump administration interpretation that it limited the total for regular and emergency benefits. The White House directed USDA on Jan 22 to consider larger emergency allotments for households with the lowest income and on Thursday, USDA changed direction. It said households that had not received an additional $95 a month in emergency allotments during the pandemic would now be eligible for them.
“States may need a few weeks to update their systems and get the additional benefits to participants,” said the USDA. Among households that saw little or nothing from the emergency allotments, about 40 percent have children, 20 percent include an elderly person and 15 percent include a disabled person, said the USDA.
“Hunger in this country has spiked dramatically as a result of the public health and economic fallout of COVID-19 and things would be far worse if not for SNAP,” said Luis Garcia of the anti-hunger Food Research and Action Center. “Expansion and investment of this critical program will improve the nutrition, health, and well-being of households while getting our economy moving.”
Under the executive order that resulted in larger SNAP payments, the USDA also increased the benefits under the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer program (P-EBT) by 15 percent. For a family with three children, the increase would be $50 a month.
At latest count, 41.4 million people received food stamps, with an average monthly benefit of $188 per person.
Until its final weeks in office, the Trump administration opposed a temporary increase in SNAP benefits during the pandemic. It proposed three rules in early 2020 to narrow SNAP eligibility and end benefits for an estimated 3.7 million people. Referring to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s record as a successful agribusinessman, the think tank Center for American Progress said last September, “An agricultural tycoon determined to gut SNAP now finds himself charged with responding to a growing hunger crisis amid a devastating pandemic.”