Food Stamp Benefits To Increase
President Joe Biden’s administration has approved an increase in the levels of food aid available to needy families. It marks the largest single increase in the program’s history.
Average benefits for food stamps will increase by more than 25 percent starting in October above pre-pandemic levels. The increased assistance will be available indefinitely to all 42 million SNAP beneficiaries.
Officials say the average monthly per-person benefits for qualified recipients will rise from $121 to $157. The increase is projected to cost an additional $20 billion per year.
The increase is part of a multi-pronged Biden administration effort to strengthen the country’s social safety net. Poverty and food security activists maintain that longstanding inadequacies were laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting an opportunity to make generational improvements that reach beyond the current public health crisis. Activists say the previous levels of pre-pandemic SNAP assistance simply weren’t enough.
