Biden administration approves largest increase to food assistance benefits in SNAP program history

[AZProgressive]

The Biden administration has approved the largest increase to food assistance benefits in the history of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), in a move that will substantially retool the program to provide the targeted assistance advocates have long said is desperately needed by poor families.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will announce Monday morning that benefit amounts for the program, formerly known as food stamps, will rise an average of 25 percent above pre-pandemic levels. The increases are based on an update to the Thrifty Food Plan, the formula used to calculate benefits, which surveys the changing costs of various categories of food.

First reported by the New York Times and confirmed by a spokeswoman at the USDA, average monthly benefits, which were $121 per person before the pandemic, will rise by $36 under the new rules.

Many anti-hunger advocates have long believed the Thrifty Food Plan’s metrics are out of date with the economic realities most struggling households face. They say the plan, formulated in the 1960s, was designed when many American families still had only one working parent, giving the other parent more time for labor-intensive, but cheaper, cooking from scratch.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/08/15/snap-food-assistance-benefit-boost/

[Midnight Writer]

1. So from $4 per day to $5 per day. That will make the Republicans squeal.