According to a budget expert, at least 300,000 people are likely to lose their SNAP benefits in the state of Georgia alone if a new law takes effect the week before, the House Agriculture Committee voted to pass the National Food and Agricultural Security Act of 2024.
President Glenn Thompson made the proposal of the bill, which promotes a $30 billion cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for a certain period, over an annual period, with the bill, the SNAP benefits Thrifty Food Plan would make a radical change, which would cause alterations in the requirements for the program to match the current dietary guidelines.
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This move makes many SNAP advocates distrustful of the health implications for under-resourced U.S. citizens who depend on the program for good nutrition.
“This legislation would reverse improvements made to SNAP’s Thrifty Food Plan that helps families and individuals better cope with the rising cost of food,” Ife Finch Floyd, Director of Economic Justice at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, said in a statement.
For the state of Georgia alone, nearly 300,000 households in three different districts could lose the paltry amount of $331 million in benefits, according to its Statement on the Agriculture, Food and Homeland Security Act of 2024.
“Federal lawmakers must take immediate action to advocate for a Farm Bill that protects and strengthens the SNAP benefits program, ensuring that it continues to support the nutritional needs of Georgia families,” Floyd also commented.
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Proponents of the bill say it is not unfairly eliminating benefits restores the previous SNAP rules, to the pre-pandemic era, that caused the federal government to increase benefits.
According to Kevin Thompson, a finance expert and founder and CEO of 9i Capital Group, “The additional SNAP support that Americans have been receiving since March 2020 was supposed to be temporary in nature, therefore the new bill would simply restore the previous SNAP policy from the pre-pandemic era.”
“The funding was never intended to be permanent,” Thompson said. ”Now, what many see as a cut may actually be a way to restore what benefits were originally supposed to be, in the absence of government stimulus.”
Even so, Thompson acknowledges that the bill could affect food security, since even time-limited support is difficult to withdraw, especially during these times when inflation is the order of the day.
Inflation has remained above 3 percent so far in recent months, despite the Federal Reserve’s efforts to ease up with higher interest rates.
The bill is not even close to becoming law yet, since it has to be approved by the entire House and then pass through a version of the law in the Senate, however, the clock is ticking, since September 30 is when Congress must enact a new law or vote to extend the previous Farm Bill.
