End of pandemic means end of extra food benefits in most states; a look at one that already did it shows struggles

The poor wait for free food in Hazel Green, Kentucky.
(Photo by Reshma Kirpalani, The Washington Post)

"In the richest country in the world, some 25 million households — including 12 million households with children under the age of 18 — reported that they sometimes or often did not have enough to eat, according to recent Census Bureau data," reports Arohi Pathak of the Center for American Progress, a progressive policy institute.

Why would so many people go hungry? The answer is simple: Some people don't have enough money for food, and the problem is getting worse, with inflation. It is about to get worse at the end of this month, with the end of extra food benefits for 41 million Americans. To illustrate what will happen, Tim Craig of The Washington Post went to one of the 18 states that have ended their emergencies and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program allotments in the past year."

Craig met Kenny Blair and his wife in Hazel Green, Kentucky, a small town in the Appalachian foothills. He reports, "Blair and his wife hop into their truck twice a month at 4 a.m. to ensure they get a few staples at the Hazel Green Food Project’s giveaway. On a recent Friday, they waited nine hours until local prisoners on work duty started loading bags of meat and vegetables, potato chips and cookies into vehicles in one of the nation’s most impoverished communities. . . . With Kentucky serving as a warning beacon, social services agencies and charities across the country are now preparing for a summer of misery as food prices continue to soar due to inflation."

The newspaper in Norton, Virginia, alerted its readers this week.

Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, which includes about 3,600 charities, told Craig, “We are bracing, and our agencies, member food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens are not prepared for what is about to hit them. This reduction, and end of the public-health emergency, could not be coming at a worse time.”

Not every state is completely severing benefits. "Political leaders in some states are considering ways to soften the impact of SNAP benefit reductions. . . . Last month, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation guaranteeing a minimum $95 per month SNAP benefit, the first state to do so, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Coughlin told Craig, "I believe, that it is closer to a moral obligation than a government function to make sure the people are fed. In every town, in every state, even in affluent communities, there is somebody who is hungry.”