In part of its tug-of-war game with Congress, the Trump Administration announced last week they would be cutting payments to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as “food stamp”) families as a way to pressure Congress to end the federal government shutdown.
This means 1.4 million Ohioans will have benefits reduced this month. Since the average per-person benefit is $186, that means Ohio will lose about $130 million in food support in November if the administration goes through with this threat.
While the SNAP program is ostensibly about food assistance, the program has a range of impacts.
According to at least some research, SNAP is an effective food insecurity program. Urban Institute researchers estimate SNAP recipiency reduces the chance of being food insecure by 30%.
Researchers at the Center for Science in the Public Interest followed families that newly received SNAP, finding their food insecurity rates dropped by 11% six months into the program.
SNAP is also an income support and antipoverty program. Since families still usually spend more of their income on food than their SNAP benefits cover (try feeding even your most peckish family member for a month on $186), SNAP benefits effectively free up resources for households to make other purchases.
Urban Institute researchers found that the 2021 update to the Thrift Food Plan used to set SNAP benefits kept 2.9 million Americans out of poverty.
On top of being a food insecurity and antipoverty program, SNAP is also an economic stimulus program.
When low-income people receive payments, they tend to spend them, which then puts money in the pockets of workers at grocery stores, who use it to pay rent, buy their own groceries, and purchase other necessities.
The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that every $1 spent on SNAP leads to $1.54 in increased Gross Domestic Product.
This can be especially important during economic downturns, when SNAP acts countercyclically to pump more money into the economy when the country needs spending the most.
So if Ohio’s federal support for fighting food insecurity, poverty, and stimulating the economy is going away, are there things the state can do to pick up the slack?
One option the state of Ohio has is funding nutrition education.
Initiatives like the SNAP-Ed program are effective tools for helping families meal plan and spend money strategically, showing in randomized controlled trials in other states to reduce food insecurity by as much as a third.
This can be a strategy the state can use to reduce food insecurity even in the face of SNAP cuts.
To fight poverty, Ohio lawmakers can use tax credits like the earned income tax credit or the child tax credit.
These sorts of programs put cash in the pockets of low-income workers while helping children get off on the right foot, supporting their health and income in the long-run.
To stimulate the state economy, one of the most powerful tools lawmakers have is state education spending, particularly early education spending.
Expanded access to high-quality prekindergarten education is a tool that can be as effective as well-designed economic development incentives at increasing local incomes in the long-run.
Ohio lawmakers can only do so much to control federal politics.
But if lawmakers want their constituents to be food secure, free from poverty, and to have economic opportunities in a thriving economy, they have options to let them do that.
This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.