MORE: More Americans struggling to put food on the table after federal benefits end

That lingering need from the pandemic, coupled with food price inflation, leaves food pantries less prepared for demand resulting from cuts to the SNAP emergency allotments. Weisgram said food pantries are not prepared to absorb the impact of the cut to the largest federal nutrition assistance program and are strictly a supplemental resource.įood banks nationwide are still coping with increased demand that began in 2020, Cheyne said. Just because I can manage doesn’t mean I’m getting everything that we need. “You can’t eat healthy without having a nice little budget,” Harris said. Once the emergency allotment is cut, she said, she knows she can do what it takes to make sure there’s food on the table in her home but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. Some older adults, she said, will see the most precipitous drop in benefits, going from $280 a month to $23.Ĭhasity Harris, 42, said the $519 in benefits she has received monthly since October makes a big difference for her and her granddaughter. The cuts will reduce payments to households that receive assistance to an average of about $6 per person, per day, Vollinger said, adding that $2 per meal isn’t enough to feed a person, especially given other factors, like rising fuel, rent and grocery prices. RELATED: As pandemic-era provisions lapse, millions of Americans to lose Medicaid “There’s no way, that I see, that we’re ever going to make up fully for what’s being lost,” said Ellen Vollinger, SNAP director for the Food Research & Action Center, an anti-hunger nonprofit in Washington, D.C.

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