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Increase in Food Costs Connected to Uptick in Food Stamp Benefits, Report Finds
A recent study found that the United States Department of Agriculture's increase in food stamp benefits is related to rising food prices.
According to a research done by the Foundation for Government Accountability and provided to Fox News Digital, food stamp spending climbed by 12.5% while supermarket prices grew by 1%.
Elizabeth Elkind of Fox News reported:
President [Joe] Biden’s Department of Agriculture rolled out revised nutritional standards for federal food benefits in 2021 that expanded the program by roughly 25% from pre-COVID pandemic levels.
Overall spending on the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) more than doubled between 2019 and 2022, according to findings from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) previewed by Fox News Digital. It went from $4.5 billion in 2019 to $11 billion in 2022, the study said.
The group argued that rising food stamp spending has contributed to the price increases that regular People have had to deal with during a period of high inflation. According to the report, food stamp spending increased by twofold between 2019 and 2022 and had a direct bearing on inflation rates.
$193 billion in public money is being used to finance the increase in food stamp payments, which was implemented without Congressional approval.
“USDA cooked their books to hike food stamp benefits by 27% — the largest permanent increase in program history. And they bypassed Congress to do it,” said Foundation for Government Accountability Vice President of Policy and Research Jonathan Ingram.
The Department of Agriculture anticipates a 5.8% increase in food costs from 2023 to 2024.
Food stamp spending is likely to be a hot topic in Congress’s reauthorization of the Farm Bill, “a wide-ranging legislation that sets funding and directs priorities for a variety of federal food consumption and production programs in the U.S.,” which include SNAP. Generally speaking, the Farm Bill's food assistance programs receive the highest financial allocation.
“SNAP serves a large and diverse caseload, with substantial shares comprising low-income working families with children, elderly and disabled people, and very low-income individuals with substantial barriers to employment,” a November 2022 Congressional Research Service report stated.
Rising food prices aren’t just impacting Americans. Across the pond, Breitbart News reported in April that Great Britain’s food prices hit their highest level in nearly half a century.
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