Wednesday, August 22, 2018

With SNAP and subsidies being negotiated in Farm Bill, how much does each have at stake in districts of negotiators?

As the House pushes for a Farm Bill that would put the first work requirements on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, once called food stamps, The Daily Yonder did a deep data dive to see how many SNAP recipients and farm-program beneficiaries are in each district of the 48 House members on the conference committee that is reconciling the House and Senate versions.

"One of the key sticking points is SNAP," Bryce Oates and Tim Marema write. "The Senate bill calls for more oversight but does not expand the work requirement. . . . Some rural districts, particularly those with high volumes of row-crop production, had high levels of government payments to farmers. Many other predominantly rural districts had very low levels of government payments to farmers, documenting the somewhat limited geographic reach of farm support payments as economic stimulus. In non-farm dependent communities, SNAP benefits dwarf government payments to farmers and also reach a significantly higher number of households."

Daily Yonder maps; click on either one to view a larger version

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