This commentary is by Anore Horton of WIlliston, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, a statewide nonprofit dedicated to ending the injustice of hunger and malnutrition in Vermont.
On Dec. 23, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill that funds the federal government through fiscal year 2023 and contains crucial investments in hunger prevention.
Continued federal support to address hunger is critical as lower-income families, and those living on fixed incomes, face the winter months with skyrocketing heating, transportation and food costs.
While we celebrate much of what Congress accomplished in the omnibus package, Hunger Free Vermont is joined by the Community of Vermont Elders, the Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging, Vermont Community Action Partnership, and Vermont Kin As Parents in unequivocally opposing the cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, known as 3SquaresVT in Vermont) that are included in the package.
Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, many Vermonters have relied on 3SquaresVT and the temporary boost in benefits through emergency allotments, averaging $82 per person per month. More than 70,000 people in our state receive 3SquaresVT and rely on these increased benefits to buy food.
In 2021, one in three Vermonters experienced hunger; today, two in five Vermonters currently experience food insecurity, which is nearly a 10% increase in the impact of hunger on our families, friends and neighbors since just last year.
One-person families, which include many older Vermonters, stand to lose up to $260 per month, or 90% of the monthly benefits households have received and relied on for nearly three years.
The 2023 omnibus bill has eliminated these allotments months earlier than expected, and redirected SNAP funds to establish a multiyear, and hopefully permanent, Summer EBT program for students who receive free or reduced-price cost meals during the school year. This new Summer EBT program will provide $40 per school-age child (less than half of the average emergency allotment per person) in electronic benefits that families can use to buy food at local grocery stores and farmers markets each month of the summer when school meals are not available.
This is a much-needed initiative and we have long called for the creation of a permanent, federally funded Summer EBT program, particularly important in rural states like Vermont, where it is so difficult to establish and sustain congregate summer meal sites in many of our small towns.
Ending SNAP Emergency Allotments after February while hunger is at its worst is an unacceptable price that Vermonters living with low incomes must now pay. Families do not have adequate time to prepare for this unexpected cut in benefits and thousands of Vermonters are going to receive considerably less food assistance in 2023, even with Summer EBT payments for families with school-age children.
Our charitable and emergency food networks, already facing significantly increased need with limited funding, will not be able to fill the gap.
All Vermont families are different, yet we are unified by a fundamental need: food to thrive, to nourish ourselves and our loved ones. For many of us, including more than 9,500 known children being raised by “kin parents,” family is multigenerational, with grandparents caring for grandchildren, aunts and uncles caring for nieces and nephews, sisters and brothers caring for their siblings.
Cutting SNAP benefits, a nutrition program that serves many different kinds of families, to pay for a child nutrition program is a no-win pattern that we see all too often from Congress. In many cases, families helped by improvements in child nutrition programs are the very same ones harmed by the reduction of their SNAP benefits.
Taking money from one nutrition program to pay for another does not alleviate the struggle that families and individuals are experiencing. Going into the coldest months of the year in Vermont, with record-high food and heating costs, now is not the time to be sunsetting critical emergency benefits.
Pitting vital anti-hunger programs against each other will only increase hunger in every corner of our state. In 2023, Congress has the opportunity to use the Farm Bill reauthorization process to permanently increase SNAP benefits and ease the eligibility rules so that everyone facing hunger and food insecurity — from retirees to college students to young workers to single parents — can be healthy and thrive.
We urge Vermonters to join us in the 2023 Farm Bill Coalition to advocate for improving and strengthening the nutrition programs that many Vermonters depend on.
