In August, 667,531 Missouri citizens received food stamps. That’s about one person in nine across the state. The average benefit was $195.51 ($2.10 per meal), meaning $131,175,972 got disbursed – thence spent at grocery stores and qualified retailers.
That month 41% of the recipients were children and about 14% were seniors. [dss.mo.gov/re]
In November no one in Missouri will get food stamps.
As noted in the St. Louis Post Dispatch on 10/18/25, and in other media, the federal government shutdown means Washington won’t send Jefferson City the November SNAP benefit money to share. Also getting cut are the federally-issued administrative funds which cover much of the state’s overhead for Missouri’s food stamps.
Predictably, the loss of hundreds of dollars per household in food funds will cause a stampede to food pantries about the state. While stamps are designed to cover two-thirds of a family’s food costs, pantries typically share just a few days worth of food. They will do all that they can but they cannot replace all food stamps provide.
This tidal wave of needs hits at a time of the year when pantries, traditionally, experience lean inventories. Most depend upon drives from Thanksgiving till Christmas to re-stock shelves.
So, please give generously when pantries beg you for extra help – and give more than usual to Holiday drives too. The food will be needed.
Okay, now let’s get philosophical…
Despite all the cries from Trumpettes and the rest of the right about people “taking advantage” of government benefit programs, the real parasites are for-profit businesses. Food stamps, W.I.C. [the Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children], “expanded Medicaid,” the ACA subsidized market place insurance plans, and, other direct benefit programs actually allow working families to survive – barely – on the low wages prevalent in many industries. McDonald’s and most every other restaurant pays workers as little as they can. The retail industry depends on taxpayers subsidizing their workers too, with Walmart getting caught a few years back handing out Medicaid applications to their workers.
Remember, the federal minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour. Yet a mom with two kids requires full time work at $12.81 an hour to touch the poverty line [2025 Federal Poverty Guidelines issued 2/25]. To be self-sufficient – above the level for free school lunch for the kids, expanded Medicaid and so on – mom needs to earn around $21.00 an hour. The next time you get burgers ask the cashier if they get 40 hours a week at $21.00 an hour. (Ask after they’ve bagged your food.)
The real welfare queens aren’t moms with kids. It’s their bosses.
The federal shutdown food stamp cuts will hurt our neighbors working necessary but undervalued jobs, and, their kids.
When the dust settles multi-billion companies and smaller businesses will still get their indirect taxpayer support. Republicans have no problem subsidizing them.
Glenn