Latest news with #Plata-Nino
Boston Globe
03-08-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Food stamp cuts could deal a blow to small grocers
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Several states have said the changes will put hundreds of thousands of households at risk of losing some or all of their SNAP benefits. Some states, including Pennsylvania, have questioned whether they can continue operating the program if they cannot shoulder the extra costs of providing benefits. Advertisement Republicans say the changes will help reduce dependence on federal benefits and ensure that SNAP serves the neediest families. They have also said the changes would hold states better accountable. Advertisement But the measures have alarmed some researchers who say they could make it harder for small grocers to stay in business, particularly in rural areas that are more likely to have both higher shares of SNAP participants and lower access to food retailers. Roughly 27,000 food retailers that largely operate in rural counties face the highest risks from the cuts, according to an analysis from the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. Gina Plata-Nino, a deputy director at the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit that supports antihunger programs, said the changes could have broad consequences for local economies. If grocery stores bring in fewer dollars, employees at those stores could lose their jobs, she said. Property tax revenue could also fall because of store closures, she added. Plata-Nino said the cuts could be particularly painful for rural areas with fewer grocery stores. If grocers close or reduce their hours, people could spend more time and money traveling to buy food, she said. The changes could also result in families purchasing less fresh produce and more food with a long shelf life because it is less convenient to go to the store, she added. Robert Greenstein, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that some families would squeeze other parts of their budgets to try to offset the loss of SNAP benefits, but the overall reduction in food purchases would be substantial. 'We'll likely see more independent grocery stores in low-income and rural areas going under, especially during a recession,' Greenstein said. Stephanie Johnson, the group vice president of government relations at the National Grocers Association, a trade group for independent grocers, said the domestic policy bill provided some benefits to businesses by making certain tax breaks permanent. But she said the group's members already had low net profit margins and some have said that jobs could be affected by the cuts to SNAP. Advertisement 'Those changes to their SNAP sales may be difficult,' Johnson said. The association has estimated that the federal program supports about 388,000 jobs across the food industry. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the program was 'never intended to be a windfall for food companies, retailers, and nonprofits,' but rather a 'temporary safety net for families and communities in need.' 'Finally, President Trump's policies are improving the economy and communities across the country,' Rollins said in a statement. 'With those improvements come jobs, which will reduce dependence on government assistance, preserving it for those truly in need.' Some local officials said they worried about how the cuts could affect food access in their communities. Matt Wireman, the judge executive of Magoffin County, Ky., said there were only two full-service grocery stores in the county, along with several dollar stores that sold food items. Wireman said he was concerned that grocers could raise prices or struggle to stay in business, given that about 30 percent of the county's roughly 11,300 residents receive SNAP benefits. Store closures could lead to more people traveling as much as 30 minutes to surrounding counties to buy groceries, Wireman said. He added that he worried poverty could worsen because Republicans have also passed cuts to Medicaid. 'With looming cuts to that and SNAP, we are heading for an economic collapse in rural east Kentucky,' Wireman said. Advertisement Some researchers said they were skeptical about the extent of the cuts and did not expect to see a large effect on spending at grocery stores. Kevin Corinth, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, praised the changes to SNAP. He said he hoped to see an increase in employment and thought the stricter work requirements would affect a 'relatively modest share' of people. He said he also expected many states to lower their error rates in the coming years, and that most would probably not have to pay a major portion of the benefits. 'I don't think there's going to be a large reduction in SNAP benefits going to households,' Corinth said. 'It's possible some states will have to cover a small share, but my guess is that this incentive will be pretty strong.' States will be subject to the new cost-share rules starting in fiscal year 2028, although certain states with higher error rates will have more time to adjust before the changes take effect. States with an error rate of 6 percent or greater will have to pay 5 percent to 15 percent of benefit costs. States with a lower error rate will not have to shoulder any of those costs. Some estimates have found that millions enrolled in the program, which provides monthly benefits to roughly 42 million people, could be affected by more stringent work requirements. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that changes to the work mandate would reduce participation in SNAP by more than 3 million people in an average month over the next decade, although that analysis is based on an earlier House version of the bill that included stricter work requirements for parents. Advertisement The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has estimated that more than 5 million people live in a household that would be at risk of losing at least some food assistance because of the expanded work requirements. Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the center, said that the bill dramatically expands work requirements and that she did not think they would help people achieve self sufficiency, pointing to a body of research that has found that work requirements do not increase employment. She also said the vast majority of states had error rates above 6 percent at some point over the past two decades. 'It is very likely that at least in some years, most, if not all, states will ultimately owe this cost share for food benefits,' Bergh said. This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Trump Administration Wants To Ban Soda From Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
The Trump administration wants to stop poor people from using federal food benefits for candy or soda. In an initiative championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the administration is encouraging states to change Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program rules to disallow certain unhealthy foods. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders leapt at the opportunity this month, filing an official request with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, to restrict which foods are eligible for purchase with SNAP debit cards. 'Banning soda and candy from food stamps will remove some of the least-healthy, most-processed foods from the program and encourage low-income Arkansans to eat better,' Sanders said in a joint press release with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins. Rollins said the approval process would move swiftly; if approved, the changes would take effect in July of next year. 'I encourage more states across the nation to follow the bold lead of states like Arkansas as we Make America Healthy Again,' she said. Indiana also has asked permission to ban junk foods while, the Republican governors of West Virginia and Idaho have said they would do so as well. It's a stunning surge of momentum for a policy idea Republicans have been kicking around in Congress and in state legislatures for decades, only to be rebuffed by senior lawmakers in both parties amid opposition from both antihunger groups and the food industry. 'This push for SNAP restrictions is historical, but we have seen an unprecedented push around the states,' Gina Plata-Nino of the Food Research & Action Center said in an interview, adding that there used to be stronger opposition at the federal level. Both Barack Obama's administration in 2015 and Trump's first administration in 2018 disallowed Maine from implementing a SNAP junk food ban, citing potential difficulties for retailers, headaches over deciding which foods are unhealthy and uncertainty over the long-term health benefit of the change. 'There's no studies that have been done on the diets of SNAP recipients,' Plata-Nino said. In an analysis of point-of-sale transaction data from a large retailer, the USDA reported in 2016 that soft drinks were the top commodity purchased by SNAP beneficiaries, whose food spending patterns were similar to other retail customers. Plata-Nino suggested a more rigorous study would examine SNAP recipients' spending habits over time. More than 20 million households receive monthly SNAP benefits, which can be used for almost any food item in a grocery store except alcohol and hot ready-to-eat meals. The Arkansas proposal would cut out 'soda, low and no-calorie soda, fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50% natural juice, unhealthy drinks, and candy' while allowing SNAP recipients to buy hot rotisserie chickens. The American Medical Association, citing an obesity epidemic in the U.S., has said SNAP restrictions are a good idea — a point of agreement between the health industry and Kennedy, who has espoused quack views on vaccines. Kennedy has championed SNAP restrictions even though the USDA, not HHS, oversees the program, reportedly causing some tension between the agencies. Kennedy said at a Cabinet meeting this month he's working with governors in 24 states 'to get soda pops off of the food stamp program,' describing it as part of a broader push, including eliminating harmful food dyes and fluoride in drinking water. Still, there's strong bipartisan opposition in Congress to restricting SNAP benefits to certain foods, and any waivers granted to states could be yanked away by a future president. Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.), chair of the House Agriculture Committee, which oversees SNAP, suggested to HuffPost in March that banning sodas from SNAP wouldn't stop SNAP recipients from drinking them. 'The average SNAP beneficiary uses multiple forms of payment when they buy their groceries,' Thompson said. 'So on the belt, you're going to find all the food choices that reflects the average family. So there'll be things there that appear to be more nutritional than others, but these individuals are using two, three or more forms of payment.' The new push for food restrictions comes as Republicans target SNAP and Medicaid for significant cuts to help offset the cost of extending tax cuts Trump enacted in his first term.
