Anti-hunger advocates and USDA at odds over increasing food stamp benefits for America’s poorest during pandemic

As the nation fights the coronavirus, anti-hunger advocates are in a battle of their own with the U.S. Department of Agriculture over food stamp benefits for the poorest Americans.

Advocates charge that the USDA, which administers the program, will be temporarily boosting allotments for better-off recipients but not for the neediest — the result, they contend, of the agency’s misreading of language in a new law that disburses emergency funds during the latter part of April.

According to the USDA’s interpretation of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, some 60% of the nearly 40 million Americans who receive food stamps — or SNAP benefits, for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Act — will see a $1.7 billion increase in each of two monthly allotments for March and April. But the other 40%, the lowest-income recipients, will get nothing extra to help see them through the pandemic.

In drafting the legislation, signed into law on March 18, Congress intended to enable SNAP households to purchase two weeks’ worth of food to have on hand during stay-at-home orders and business closures, according to Ann Sanders, public policy advocate for Just Harvest, an anti-hunger organization in Pittsburgh. This would limit the number of their trips to grocery stores, thereby helping maintain social distancing, Sanders said.

The controversy centers on a single paragraph in the act.

It says that the USDA will provide “emergency allotments to households participating in [SNAP] ... to address temporary food needs not greater than the applicable maximum monthly allotment for the household size.”

By instructing the USDA to provide emergency allotments to SNAP households, the act stipulates that the agency must increase benefits to all people in the program, Sanders and others inferred. The only caveat is that the emergency money shouldn’t exceed maximum allotment levels.

Typically, SNAP benefits are capped according to household size and poverty level: A single person can receive up to $194 a month; for two people, it’s $355; for three, $509; for four, $646. It goes up to families of eight, whose caps are $1,018. Families bigger than that can add $146 per person. Under the new law, for instance, a family of three getting $200 a month in SNAP benefits will receive a bump to the maximum $509 for each of two months.

» ASK US: Do you have a question about the coronavirus and how it affects your health, work and life? Ask our reporters.

As the USDA interprets the new law, the term emergency allotment doesn’t mean an extra layer of funding to be applied to existing benefits. The agency is saying emergency money should go only to households that do not receive maximum allotments.

This omits the poorest households, which currently receive the highest possible levels of benefits.

According to the Families First Act, the USDA said in a statement, "SNAP households that currently receive the maximum allotment are not eligible for an emergency allotment.“

That, said Sanders, “is the more stringent interpretation, and less money than if the USDA gave everyone an emergency allotment.” To correct it, she added, some members of Congress are drafting a “letter of intent” to the Trump administration stating that the USDA’s reading of the law is not what federal legislators wanted.

Sanders also said that the USDA interpretation will “make it harder for the lowest income families to follow self-distancing, as per guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also means such families can’t have a stockpile of food, can’t fill their cupboards.”

Kathy Fisher, policy director of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger, called the USDA’s interpretation of the act "infuriating.”

Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, headquartered in New York, agreed, adding, “It’s great we helped some families, but if we fail the neediest families, then it’s a failed public policy.”

In a statement, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue said: “USDA is committed to maximizing our services and flexibilities to ensure children and others who need food can get it during this coronavirus epidemic.

“This is a challenging time for many Americans,” he said, "but it is reassuring to see President Trump and our fellow Americans stepping up to the challenges facing us to make sure kids and those facing hunger are fed.”

In addition to the USDA’s alternative view of the emergency allotment, representatives of the Washington-based Food Research & Action Center are puzzled by something else: Why is the agency allowing an increase in benefits for just two months?

“Nothing in what Congress wrote mentions limiting the emergency funding to two months,” said Ellen Vollinger, legal director of FRAC, the nation’s largest anti-hunger lobbying group. “It’s certainly not helping the poorest.”

USDA officials did not address the issue.

As of February, 1,737,459 individual Pennsylvanians were receiving SNAP benefits, including 448,279 in Philadelphia, according to the Greater Philadelphia Coalition.

Advocates said that numbers reflecting coronavirus-related increases in SNAP enrollment have not been tabulated yet.

More than 100 lawmakers sent a letter this week asking congressional leaders to boost SNAP benefits for all recipients by 15%. That request, which was rejected, had originally been made as part of the $2 trillion CARES Act, signed into law March 27.

Legislators are also asking that the minimum SNAP allotment be increased from $16 a month to $30.