A judge has tossed out a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that would have limited food stamps, noting that during the pandemic "SNAP rosters have grown by over 17 percent with over 6 million new enrollees." Here, a sign alerts customers about food stamps at a store in New York City.
Scott Heins
Scott Heins
A judge has tossed out a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that would have limited food stamps, noting that during the pandemic "SNAP rosters have grown by over 17 percent with over 6 million new enrollees." Here, a sign alerts customers about food stamps at a store in New York City.
Airdate: Thursday, March 9, 2023
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people who received SNAP benefits received an additional monthly payment, which helps low-income individuals and families buy nutritious food. This month the extra payments, known as SNAP emergency allotments, have expired and nearly two million Pennsylvanians will be affected by this change.
On The Spark Thursday, Shelley Peterson, Community Progress Council’s Director of Housing Education, and Amy Hill, Director of Community Engagement and Advocacy for the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, joined us to discuss the impact of SNAP emergency allotments ending and resources to help SNAP recipients during this transition.
Hill said, now that the emergency allotments are coming to an end, on average, recipients will start to see $100 to $108 less in their benefit payments per week, which she said will be a big difference for a lot of people.
“We have already seen here at the Food Bank, for the last four, five or six months, an uptick in the number of people who really need help,” Hill said. “I don’t know that even just a few months ago when they (Congress) made this decision that they were really fully contemplating the inflation and the food prices and some of those things that factor into the the difficulty that some people are going to face here in the coming weeks.”
The Central Pennsylvania Food Bank and the Community Progress Council were prepared to handle the increased need for their services due to the SNAP Emergency Allotments coming to an end.
The Food Bank provides a SNAP Helpline, at 1-877-999-5964, to help recipients with this transition and refers people in need to local food pantries in their neighborhood.
Community Progress Council offers a Financial Education and Self-Sufficiency program, where individuals and families are able to set and reach their financial goals with the support of financial counselors and coaches.
“Reliance on public benefits is tough. It’s hard for folks and sometimes certainly invokes not a lot of pride in oneself for having to be dependent on another. And it’s vital for them at that point,” Peterson said. “And so our Self-Sufficiency program really focuses on how to get people off of public benefits, how to increase your income, how to take a look at your goal setting, and in what ways we can assist in working out your situation and helping you so that you get to the point where you are not reliant on public benefits and can take great pride in the fact that you’ve made progress and made progress in becoming more self-sufficient.”
For more information about the Community Progress Council’s programs visit yorkcpc.org. For more information on the resources the Food Bank offers visit centralpafoodbank.org.
The Associated Press and WITF’s democracy reporter Jordan Wilkie are partnering to tell stories about how Pennsylvania elections work, and to debunk misinformation surrounding elections.
