Illinois emergency food stamp benefits end Wednesday.
Starting Wednesday, March 1st hundreds of thousands of people in Illinois will have less money for grocery shopping.
On that day the federal government is ending emergency SNAP food benefits in Illinois and nationwide.
That means recipient households will see their monthly grocery allocations reduced by at least $95, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research and policy think tank. In daily terms, that equates to trimming the roughly $9 per-person average to about $6.10. And the change comes when food prices in January were had increased 10% over the same month last year.
Charles Jones, a 63-year-old U.S. military veteran based in Rockford, Illinois, received an enhanced monthly SNAP benefit of $281 under the temporary program. After it ends next week, his payments will plummet to $23 — the minimum monthly amount.
“When they cut this extra benefit from SNAP, that’s going to put me in a serious problem,” he said. (NBC)
Enacted as a result of the pandemic, enhanced SNAP benefits kept 4.2 million people above the poverty line in the final quarter of 2021, lowering overall poverty by 10% and child poverty by 14%.
It is estimated that the emergency program helped reduce poverty rates most steeply among Black and Latino recipients.
Illinois is one of 32 states that had allowed the enhanced SNAP benefits to extend to the federal March 1 deadline.
But, as I said, the enhanced SNAP benefit ends Wednesday.
Some Red states including Florida, Arkansas, Georgia and Mississippi have already chosen to end the emergency allotment.
At a time of rising international tensions, a new Cold War with Russia and China and the resulting record increases in war expenditures, Congress and the Biden administration have made their choice between guns and butter.
And they aren’t choosing butter.