BEYOND THE NUMBERS
As House Considers Big Cuts to SNAP, New Figures Highlight Its Importance
Stacy Dean, CBPP’s Vice President for Food Assistance Policy, has issued a statement on today’s Agriculture Department figures on the number of Americans having trouble affording adequate food. Here’s the opening:
Some 17.6 million households, with 49 million people, lacked access to adequate food at some point in 2012 because they didn’t have enough money or other resources to meet their basic food needs, according to today’s release from the U.S. Agriculture Department. These figures on “food insecurity” are essentially consistent with the findings in 2011, showing again that the slow recovery from the Great Recession has been very hard for low-income Americans.
These figures also come a week before House Republican leaders are expected to unveil legislation to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by more than $40 billion over the next 10 years — taking some 4 to 6 million individuals off SNAP altogether and cutting benefits for many more people, including low-income working families with children. . . .
