In recent weeks, the U.S. House of Representatives drafted a budget resolution that proposes a staggering $230 billion in cuts to USDA programs, including those aimed at fighting hunger.
While we won’t know the exact scope of these cuts and what programs will be impacted until there’s a reconciliation bill, one worrying proposal is the rollback of the Thrifty Food Plan, a key tool used to set SNAP benefits. If enacted, this could slash benefits for millions of vulnerable families, including children, seniors and people with disabilities.
In this post, we’ll dive into what the Thrifty Food Plan is, why it’s so important and the real consequences these cuts could have for families who are already struggling to put food on the table.
The Thrifty Food Plan Explained
In the most simplest of terms, the Thrifty Food Plan helps to determine the value of SNAP benefits.
The USDA defines the Thrifty Food Plan as the “national standard for a nutritious diet at a minimal cost.” In other words, it’s an outline for the cheapest nutritious diet possible for a family to live on. USDA uses this as a basis for how much the maximum monthly SNAP benefit should be. It does this by creating theoretical “market baskets” for different age and gender groups, using this to calculate food prices, nutritional requirements and dietary recommendations.
The 2021 Thrifty Food Plan Update
The Thrifty Food Plan was first introduced in 1975 and since that time was only updated once to adjust for inflation. Since it was based on criteria set nearly 50 years ago, it no longer held up against today’s grocery prices and time strapped families. For example, it assumed families consumed 40 pounds of milk and yogurt and more than 5 pounds of beans every week, were able to spend up to two hours cooking every day and prepared the majority of their meals, including items like bread, from scratch.
This just isn’t realistic. The world looks a lot different than it did in the 1970s. It’s much more likely that parents are working and don’t have unlimited time during the day to shop and cook. Preparing healthy meals takes time and money, both of which can be in short supply for families juggling parenting, careers and other caretaking responsibilities.
But in 2021, the USDA fulfilled a directive of the 2018 bipartisan Farm Bill which required the agency to reevaluate the plan every five years, beginning no later than 2022, using new data-driven criteria based on current food prices, nutrition data, consumption patterns and dietary guidance.
The Thrifty Food Plan and SNAP
For decades, SNAP benefits fell short of what many families needed to buy and prepare healthy meals. Since these benefits are calculated based on the Thrifty Food Plan, the 2021 update to its standards also increased benefits by 21%, a significant spike since the formula hadn’t changed in nearly 50 years.
The reevaluated Thrifty Food Plan had an immediate and profound impact, keeping nearly 2.3 million people out of poverty that year, reducing overall poverty by nearly 5% and lowering child poverty by 8.6% with the greatest decline (12.2%) among Black and Hispanic children.
Today, the average SNAP benefit is about $2 per person per meal, up from $1.40 before this update. Yet even after this long overdue update to the value of benefits, SNAP dollars remain modest, with the maximum daily SNAP benefit not even able to cover the cost of a meal for families in 99% of counties in the U.S.. In fact, based on USDA data, nearly 78% of SNAP benefits are redeemed within two weeks of receipt and 96% are spent within a month.
The Impact on Kids
SNAP benefits are targeted to reach the nation’s most vulnerable individuals. A reversal to the Thrifty Food Plan update would result in a cut in benefits for a whole lot of people, including the more than 16 million kids, 7.5 million adults 60 years or older and over 4 million people with disabilities who currently participate in the program.
Cutting SNAP would have profound consequences. These benefits are critical in both the short and long term. When kids have access to nutritious food, they’re healthier, have fewer chronic illnesses, have better cognitive development and perform better in school. This leads to more opportunities throughout their lifetime, like higher earning and the ability to escape the cycle of poverty.
