Government agencies and nonprofits have begun looking for ways to blunt the impact of a new federal law that could see thousands of Vermonters lose access to food benefits.
The budget package Congress passed earlier this month will reduce funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by 20% over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
That program, known as SNAP, supplies the vast majority of food aid in Vermont, where about 65,000 residents received $155 million in benefits last year.
Miranda Gray, deputy commissioner of the Economic Services Division at the Department for Children and Families, said her office is exploring ways to stop, or at least delay, the termination of food benefits for low-income residents. But she said the legislation will inevitably affect food security in Vermont.
“It is significant. I don’t want to sugarcoat it,” Gray said. “I am concerned about access and also just the ripple effect. We are talking about Vermonters having less money. We also know that money is spent in our grocery stores, so there’s an economic component here as well.”
The new law expands work requirements for SNAP — a move that could knock roughly 2,000 people out of the program, according to analysis by Gray’s department.
We’re going to try to do everything we can within these new parameters we’ve been given to make sure Vermonters have access where they can have access.Miranda Gray, Department for Children and Families
Individuals between the ages of 55 and 64, and parents with children between the ages of 14 and 17, will now have to document that they’re working at least 20 hours per week in order to remain eligible. Those work requirements will also apply to veterans, unhoused people and young adults exiting the foster system, all of whom previously received exemptions.
Food security advocates, as well as Democratic Congresswoman Becca Balint, worry the provision will also affect Vermonters who are meeting the work requirements, but won’t be able to navigate the administrative process of proving that.
“In theory it sounds great, right? Make sure that everyone who is able to work, is eligible to work, is working,” Balint said last week. “When work requirements … have been put into place, the end result has been people just miss the paperwork that they need.”
John Sayles, president of the Vermont Foodbank, said nonprofit and charitable organizations won’t be able to fill in the gaps.
“We’re about at capacity for our facilities and our budget, and … there’s no way that we’re going to be able to make up the difference in reductions in SNAP benefits,” Sayles said.
The Vermont Foodbank recently laid off nearly 10% of its staff, due to structural budget issues unrelated to the SNAP cuts.
The new federal law does away with the annual inflation adjustment that was meant to maintain the buying power of food benefits. Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, said that provision functions as a cut to all 65,000 beneficiaries that will deepen over time.
“That means that as food prices rise, the value of people’s SNAP benefits — those people who still qualify — will go down, year after year after year,” Horton said.
The federal budget also prohibits the state from disbursing federal benefits to asylees and refugees who are in the country legally. Gray said her department is working to determine how many recipients will lose access to benefits as a result of that provision.
“We’re going to try to do everything we can within these new parameters we’ve been given to make sure Vermonters have access where they can have access,” she said.
Both Horton and Sayles say the surest way to avoid a dangerous rise in food insecurity is for Vermont to increase state funding for nutrition assistance programs. Later this month, lawmakers and the governor will meet formally for the first time since the federal budget passed to discuss the impact on Vermont.
“We in Vermont have a choice to make, and Gov. Scott’s administration and our state legislature have a choice to make, and that is, ‘Are we going to prioritize making sure that people’s most basic needs for food, for health care and for shelter, are we going to work to meet those or not?'” Horton said.
