How SNAP became the most expensive federal food assistance program

Call it a policy paradox.

The federal government’s most popular — and most expensive — food assistance program also brings the most intense, partisan debate when the farm bill provision is reauthorized every five years.

And with the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) hitting a record-high $113.8 billion in fiscal year 2021, the stage is set for yet another political fight when Congress writes the next farm bill.

The tone of early SNAP discussions on Capitol Hill have already signaled as much, with Republicans on the House Ag Committee targeting the program’s total price tag and Democrats defending emergency and supplemental benefit increases enacted since the last law.

“I’m very frustrated at this moment that my Democratic colleagues have already drawn a line in the sand that this program will not be touched in the next reauthorization of the farm bill,” committee ranking member Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., said at an April hearing on SNAP.

“How can we be so certain everything in Title IV (the nutrition title) is perfect? Or untouchable?” Thompson said.

Thompson, who has said SNAP will cost taxpayers $1 trillion over the next 10 years, has joined other Republicans in pushing for reforming the income and employment criteria to qualify for the program and setting stricter guidelines around what foods SNAP users can spend their benefits on.

Similar policy suggestions are also outlined in a wide-ranging document, called the “Blueprint to Save America: FY 2023 Budget,” published in June by the Republican Study Committee (RSC). U.S. Reps. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro; Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap; and Mary Miller, R-Oakland are members of the RSC.

The RSC in its proposal further calls for consolidating SNAP into individual state block grant programs and implementing “anti-fraud” measures like showing a state-ID when using an electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card, barring using an EBT card in other states and prohibiting cash withdrawals of EBT benefits.

Democrats, meanwhile, are vying to retain extra SNAP benefits for users, contending that pressures from COVID-19 and inflation will continue to make food more expensive and less accessible for low-income Americans.

“SNAP is a highly responsive program, which serves as a stabilizer in times of economic downturn, something we saw clearly during the pandemic,” said U.S. Rep. Cythnia Hayes, D-Conn.

Added U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa: “Unless Congress continues to support and improve critical programs like SNAP, we are unlikely to make any meaningful progress towards food insecurity.”

Adam Nielsen, Illinois Farm Bureau’s director of national legislation and policy development, told FarmWeek that even though the numbers are “mind boggling,” SNAP and the money spent to keep the program afloat are an essential piece of the farm bill.

“USDA food assistance is a more than $100 billion annual expense, but if USDA economists are correct — and they are — roughly $16 billion to $18 billion of that SNAP spending each year ultimately makes its way back to the farm gate,” Nielsen said. “So, farm bill politics and food insecurity aside, there are a variety of reasons why we can’t view SNAP as anything other than a vital part of USDA spending.”

The Congressional Budget Office projects SNAP will cost about $531 billion from fiscal year 2024 through FY 2028, the five-year period covered by the next farm bill.

The entire 2018 nutrition title, which includes SNAP and other nutrition programs, is estimated to have cost $326 billion from FY 2019 to FY 2023.

How did the program become so expensive?

FY 2020: COVID leads to benefit increase

The rapid expansion of SNAP largely began in FY 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic resulted in higher unemployment rates and other economic pressures.

Congress passed and former-President Donald Trump signed into law a series of bills, including the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Both laws, in addition to other measures, “allowed USDA to meet the rising need for food and nutrition assistance by expanding the scope and coverage of existing programs through greater administrative flexibilities, higher benefits and greater access,” according to a 2021 report from USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS).

Specifically, the laws authorized states to provide emergency SNAP allotments by increasing benefits for enrolled households to the maximum allowable for their size and permitted SNAP users to spend their benefits in online grocery purchases.

1.993 million Illinoisans participated in SNAP in fiscal year 2021, a 6% increase from FY 2020.

Illinois implemented the changes in spring 2020 and by the end of FY 2020, the state had an average of 1.869 million people participating each month in SNAP — a 14% increase from FY 2019.

Per-person benefits averaged $150.34 each month, a 10.5% increase from FY 2019, and the total cost of SNAP in Illinois for FY 2020 was $3.373 million, up from $2.646 million in FY 2019.

National figures rose, too.

Nationwide, SNAP participation in FY 2020 averaged 39.9 million people per month, or 12% higher than in the year prior. That equates to 12.1% of the U.S. population participating in SNAP.

Per-person benefits nationally, including emergency allotments, averaged $154.99 per month, a 19% boost from FY 2019. Total federal spending on SNAP in FY 2020 totaled $78.9 billion, or 31% more than the previous fiscal year.

According to ERS, those increases are directly tied to the policy changes made by federal lawmakers.

“The economic downturn and federal pandemic response collectively resulted in higher SNAP participation and benefits through the rest of the fiscal year,” ERS said in its report, noting that enrollment and benefits both rose in the second half of the fiscal year, after the policies were in place.

FY 2021: Extra benefits extended

SNAP’s continued growth in fiscal year 2021 mostly follows a similar pattern as FY 2020, wherein policy changes led to increased enrollment and cost at the state and federal levels.

But the increases were even larger.

Total spending on SNAP nationwide increased 44% to $113.8 billion. Per-person benefits increased 41% to an average of $218.14 per month, and enrollment rose 4% to 41.5 million people on average each month.

Illinois’ SNAP figures rose again in FY 2021, with average monthly enrollment 6.6% higher — or 1.993 million people — than FY 2020. Total cost was $5.092 billion, up 50.9% from FY 2020, and average monthly benefits increased to $212.85 per person.

Total spending on SNAP nationwide increased 44% to $113.8 billion in fiscal year 2021, and national enrollment rose 4% to 41.5 million people on average each month.

Jordan Jones, a research agricultural economist with ERS, said during a recent webinar the spikes in federal and state SNAP spending are reflective of the program itself.

“SNAP is also an entitlement program, meaning that all people who are eligible are entitled to receive benefits, and the program grows as needed, typically during economic downturns,” Jones said. “So, more recipients, a larger benefit means overall larger program, at least in terms of spending.”

The program’s ballooning last fiscal year stems from major policy developments in Congress, including the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021.

The former law authorized a 15% SNAP benefit increase for six months, which was then extended another three months under the latter law and finally expired in September 2021.

In April 2021, USDA following an executive order from President Joe Biden updated its guidance to provide a minimum monthly emergency allotment of $95 to all SNAP recipients.

Three months later, USDA announced it would reevaluate the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) under a mandate included in the 2018 farm bill. TFP is the basis for calculating SNAP benefits.

That reevaluation concluded the cost of a nutritious diet is 21% higher than the previous plan, first set 45 years ago, and ultimately led to permanently increasing the maximum baseline SNAP benefit by $1.19 per person per day starting in FY 2022.

FY 2022: Benefits and enrollment tracking higher

With two months left in fiscal year 2022, SNAP is on track toward another period of notable participation and spending.

As of April — the most recent monthly data available — total SNAP spending is at $68.222 billion and U.S. participation is at an average of 41.25 million people per month.

Illinois’ FY 2022 SNAP spending totals $3.324 billion as of April, with an average of 1.959 million people each month receiving $242.31 in benefits per person, FNS data shows.

Other than cost, what might also drive farm bill discussions over SNAP in the coming months is whether the program actually helps people struggling to pay for food. The answer depends on whom you ask.

Stacy Dean, FNS deputy under secretary told lawmakers this spring “there is extraordinary evidence to support SNAP in terms of the outcomes that it achieves, both in terms of alleviating immediate hardship, and then over the longer term with poverty reduction, food insecurity.”

The way U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, R-Georgia sees it, SNAP “was designed to work as a primer to … get people through difficult times. And it is — it has been successful doing that.

“But now it has become a generational problem. In other words, we’ve had generations that continue to be on welfare,” Allen said. “We need to reform this program so that it serves its original intended purposes.”

Citing an ERS study published in October, U.S. Rep. Abigail Spangberger, D-Virginia, said data suggests “SNAP and congressional actions to enhance SNAP both prevented hunger and strengthened local economies in the communities we represent across this country.”

That study, which analyzed the effect of SNAP benefits and economies during six years of high employment after the great recession, found SNAP benefits contributed disproportionately more to the rural economy.

The $71 billion in SNAP benefits spent across the period generated $48.8 billion in rural economic output and supported the employment of 279,000 rural workers, ERS concluded.