My daughter loves to cook and she forces everyone in her home (including the dog) to eat healthy.
For example, the step kids like chicken nuggets, so, she makes them from scratch – even sneaking shredded cauliflower and carrots into the batter.
Alas, most of us don’t enjoy cooking that much. The 1950’s and early 1960’s lifestyle where the ‘woman of the house’ spent an hour a day shopping and hours on meal preparation (always favoring fresh, in-season ingredients) really never got beyond June Cleaver and Harriett Nelson.
Yet, for generations the United States Department of Agriculture’s “Thrifty Food Plan” charted what a family with a lower income ought to spend on food based on the June and Harriet lifestyle. Worse, that draconian, labor-intensive approach fed into the budget for determining how much struggling families received in food stamps.
The good news: the Biden administration is reworking the Thrifty Food Plan in a way that increases the average base food stamp benefit by about 15%.
The bad news: the coming end to pandemic food stamp bonuses still means typical benefits will fall off a cliff. The fall just won’t be so far.
You see, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden supported a boost to food stamps when Covid crippled the economy, just as George W. Bush and Barrack Obama nudged benefits during the great recession. These boosts were to cover the emergency situation, not permanent. The recession boost, for example, expired a few years into the Obama administration
Let’s look at the average benefit per person per meal in Missouri for June…
2011 2015 2020 2021
$1.42 $1.37 $1.92 $2.53
Source: www.mo.dss.gov/re
This June’s benefit ain’t bad. Yes, it still wouldn’t cover a lunch of one Kenrick’s hamburger patty, a bun, a slice of deli American cheese, some chips and a glass of home made ice tea but it is way better than the state’s historical benefit level in the $1.30 to $1.45 range.
With the revised Thrifty Food Plan formula, we would expect the average Missouri benefit to go to $1.74 – better than the old base but still way below what is needed. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/08/15/snap-food-assistance-benefit-boost/ ] The “Low Cost Food Plan” (next higher on the USDA charts) of around $2.32 per person per meal would be more attuned to this century. [ www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp ]
Three takeaways:
- The new formula will add real money – about $85 a month for a typical family of four – to the food budget base.
- Even with the new formula, most families can expect a dramatic decrease in food stamp benefits in coming months – around a $310 a month loss to that family of four.
- The higher formula will not reduce the need for most food stamp families to also need free pantry food to survive.
Of course, this being Missouri we have to remember that the Department of Social Services barely functions. Getting help in the Show Me State is always hard but especially now with under-staffing, Covid office closures and the Greitens – Parson administration’s disdain for helping citizens. A lot of deserving families who need and qualify for food stamps don’t get them. As I mentioned before, nationwide food stamp participation increased by more than 12% in the past year: in Missouri participation fell by 10%. The state of Missouri prefers to sit-out the war on hunger.
Oh yes, my daughter spends way more than a food stamp family preparing meals for the five (plus the dog) in her home. Fortunately, she can afford to buy what she wants. And, she makes a wonderful grated Brussels Sprout salad with fresh bacon.
Glenn