A provision in Trump's multi-trillion dollar "big beautiful" budget bill before Congress calls for significantly cutting SNAP, Medicaid and Medicare.
SNAP provides food aid to 42 million children, seniors and families.
The proposed cuts could affect more than 9 billion meals on average each year.
"Which means there's just no way that local church pantries and local food programs and local food distribution opportunities can possibly absorb that massive increase in food insecurity that would be created if these cuts go through."
WYSO’s Shay Frank spoke with Vince Hall, chief government relations officer for Feeding America, about the expected impact of these proposed cuts.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Shay Frank: Can you tell me a little bit more about this bill that Congress is considering that's asking for a significant reduction to SNAP, Medicaid, and Medicare?
Vince Hall: Those are three vitally important programs, and those cuts would come at a time when the cost of food and health care is already out of reach for millions of people.
To give you some perspective, just the SNAP cuts in this bill alone would remove 9.5 billion meals per year from the tables of people who are struggling with hunger. The entire Feeding America network, by comparison, generates about 6 billion meals per year.
So Congress is effectively proposing to cut the SNAP program by an amount that is 58% larger than the current output of the entire charitable food system in the country.
Which means there's just no way that local church pantries and local food programs and local food distribution opportunities can possibly absorb that massive increase in food insecurity that would be created if these cuts go through.
Frank: Who would this cut hit the hardest?
Hall: There is this misunderstanding about who actually relies on SNAP. Most of the people on SNAP fall into three categories:
- they're either senior citizens,
- they are children,
- or they are people with disabilities.
Not many people in those three groups can be expected to find a pathway to self-sufficiency and cutting their SNAP benefits is absolutely not going to serve any positive purpose. It's just going to increase senior hunger and the hunger for those other groups.
The idea that there are large percentages of SNAP are people who are just not willing to work is simply not true. The vast majority of people on SNAP who can work, do work.
"There's also, by the way, a real threat to the economy of Ohio. I mean, there are over 10,000 retailers in Ohio who survive in part because of the SNAP benefits that are invested in their stores and then have reverberations across the whole local economy."
The reason they're still eligible for SNAP, even though they're working full-time and sometimes two full-time jobs, is that the wages that they earn aren't enough to cover all of life's monthly essentials. Especially with the highly inflated costs that we have today for basic necessities like gasoline, electricity, food, health care, rent.
Frank: Here at WYSO, we recently did a story about Map the Meal Gap data showing that hunger is steadily rising and food insecurity is on the rise, especially in our coverage area here in Southwest Ohio. So if these cuts are implemented, how do you see that impacting, then, hunger overall in our area beyond what it's already been experiencing?
Hall: It's only going to get worse.
I mean, already today, 15% of households in Ohio, including 20% of Ohio's children, one out of every five kids in Ohio, is struggling with food insecurity. Those kids just aren't consistently sure where their next meal is going to come from. So all told, there's about almost a million and a half SNAP recipients in Ohio that would be really adversely affected by these cuts.
There's also, by the way, a real threat to the economy of Ohio. I mean, there are over 10,000 retailers in Ohio who survive in part because of the SNAP benefits that are invested in their stores and then have reverberations across the whole local economy. It's estimated by USDA that over $1.50 in economic stimulus comes from every $1 that is paid in SNAP benefits.
In the legislation before Congress right now, there is a proposal to shift $940 million of costs associated with the SNAP program from the federal government to the state government. And Ohio's budget is not prepared to invest nearly a billion dollars a year in the SNAP program.
So their only options would be to cut investments in things like education, public safety, health care, to prop up those SNAP benefits or to just cut SNAP benefits and give people less access to food resources.
Frank: Is there anything else you think would be important for us to touch on before we close out today?
Hall: If people want to help out, there's four easy things they can do: they can donate their time by volunteering, they can donate food, if they are able, they can donate funding if they're able, which is obviously very important. And then lastly, they can donate their voice. They become an advocate on the issue of hunger.
We don't have a food crisis in the country, we have a crisis of political will.
