The budget resolution passed by the House and Senate, which gives instructions to House and Senate committees to produce legislation that is combined into a reconciliation bill, calls on the House Agriculture Committee to reduce expenditures of $230 billion over nine years. While SNAP is not mentioned in budget resolution, Republican have made it very clear that they do not intend to make cuts to programs taht benefit farmers. So the $230 million will have to come from SNAP.
Following through on this proposal, would cost Pennsylvania $10.46 billion over that period or roughly $1.16 billion per year. That is a reduction of roughly 20% in the $4.26 billion spent on SNAP each year in Pennsylvania.
Here I want to describe the impact of these cuts on Pennsylvanians who rely on SNAP, reminding you that SNAP does not just benefit those who directly receive it.
The Importance of SNAP in Pennsylvania
SNAP in Pennsylvania benefits two million people, or 15% of the state’s population. Of those two million, 58% are families with children. And 44% are households with family members who are seniors or disabled. More than 280,000 Pennsylvania SNAP recipients are over the age of 65. Of all Pennsylvania’s young people under the age of 21, 765,000 receive SNAP.
SNAP benefits in Pennsylvania mostly go to families living in poverty. About 69% of the families receiving SNAP are below the poverty line. The other 31% are just above it. By helping families afford food, SNAP enables them to pay for life’s other necessities. On average, SNAP lifted 304,000 people including 109,000 children above the poverty line between 2015 and 2019.
SNAP benefits are not high to begin with. On average, each person in a household receiving SNAP receives only $178 per month or $5.85 per day.
SNAP and Grocery Stores
Cuts in SNAP don’t just hurt those who are food insecure. It has serious costs for our economy. Every $1 spent on the program generates $1.54 in local economic activity since SNAP income is almost entirely spent in local food stores. And in Pennsylvania, SNAP pays for 8% of all grocery store purchases, and, of course, far more in low-income communities. In this notoriously low-margin business, an 8% reduction in purchases could threaten the survival of grocery stores. In many places in Pennsylvania, and especially Philadelphia, we have made major strides in reducing food deserts in recent years. This drastic cut to grocery store revenues would lead some of these stores to close. Low-income Pennsylvanians would be forced to buy food in small corner stores, which have higher prices and a much worse selection of high-quality, healthy foods than grocery stores.
It is sheer nonsense to say that the cuts could come from reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. SNAP has one of the best quality control systems of any government program.[1] Human error on the part of eligibility workers or applicants do lead to some overpayments, but the net overpayment rate—overpayments minus underpayments—was 5% in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year for which we have data. That is far less than the dollar amount of cuts proposed in the House budget resolution. And it is far less than the estimated tax gap between taxes owed, and taxes paid of 15%.
How SNAP Might Be Cut and How It Will Hurt
We don’t yet know exactly how the Republicans would cut SNAP. Those decisions are made by legislative committees after the final budget resolution is adopted. We know, roughly, that a 20% reduction in SNAP spending in Pennsylvania would required some combination of restrictions on beneficiaries or benefits, although Republicans would require a reduction in beneficiaries is not clear. But a 20% reduction in beneficiaries would push 400,000 off the program. And a 20% reduction in the average benefit would reduce it from $5.85 to $4.68 per person per day.
How SNAP Might Be Cut and How It Will Hurt
But lately, Republicans have been talking about a proposal floated by House Agriculture Committee chairman Glenn Thompson, who represents the fifteenth congressional district in Pennsylvania. That plan is to require states to match a percentage of the cost of SNAP benefits for the first time in the program’s history. (States now pay for half of the program’s administrative expenses, not for benefits.)
This proposal is being put forward as a way for states to have “skin in the game.” But it is really just a way to hide a federal spending cut and force state officials to take the blame for cuts to the program. And it would put states like Pennsylvania in a difficult situation. A ten-percent match last year would have cost the state $427 million. This is the equivalent to 1.5 times what the state spends on community colleges and twice what it spends on environmental programs. At a time when state revenues do not cover annual General Fund expenditures—with the gap of over $4 billion covered by the accumulated state surplus—Pennsylvania is not capable of covering this gap. And if the state could only pay part of the cost, the result would be deep cuts in federal support for the program. For example, if the state can only put in half of the 10% match—or $214 million—it would lose more than $1.8 billion in federal funding. That would result in reduced benefits or reduced eligibility. If benefits are cut, the average benefit per day for each member of a household would drop from $5.85 to $4.52, a 23% reduction. A $1.8 billion reduction in federal aid would lead to as much as a 41% reduction in eligibility, throwing 836,000 Pennsylvanians off SNAP.
Another possible way for the federal government to reduce SNAP would be to roll back the 2021 improvements to SNAP benefits. SNAP benefits are based on the “Thrifty Food Plan,” an estimate of how much it costs to pay for a healthy diet. In 2021 Congress mandated a revision of the plan to start in 2022 that would make its estimates of the cost of a healthy diet more realistic. This led to a national average increase in SNAP benefits from $4.80 to $6.20 per person per day (in 2024 dollars), an increase of 30%. One possible reduction to SNAP being discussed among Republicans would be to revert back to the 2021 method of calculating the Thrifty Food Plan, which would drastically reduce benefits. Benefits in Pennsylvania would, again, likely drop 22% from about $5.85 per day to $4.53 per day.
And one more thing: Republicans claim that we should add work requirements to SNAP. Well SNAP already has work requirements. But, as we explain here, work requirements for social safety net programs are neither necessary or a good idea. Mostly they create red tape that stops people who deserves social safety net benefits from receiving them.
More Information on SNAP
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, A Closer Look at Who Benefits from SNAP: State-By-State Fact Sheets—Pennsylvania
Community Legal Services of Pennsylvania, SNAP Fuels Pennsylvania
Dottie Rosenbaum, Katie Bergh, and Wesley Tharpe, Imposing SNAP Benefit Costs on States Would Worsen Hunger, Hurt States’ Ability to Meet Residents’ Needs, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
1. Dottie Rosenbaum and Katie Bergh, “SNAP Includes Extensive Payment Accuracy System,” CBPP, Updated June 21, 2024, https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-includes-extensive-payment-accuracy-system.