Food stamp benefit, boosted during recession, ends Friday
Oct 31, 2013, 1:37 PM | Updated: Nov 1, 2013, 7:32 am
The expiration of a temporary increase in benefits for those who receive food stamps will impact more than one million low-income people and their families in Washington. (AP)
(AP)
The expiration of a temporary increase in food stamp benefits will impact more than 1 million low-income people and their families in Washington.
The added benefit to the food assistance program, known as SNAP, was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, enacted in 2009 during the recession. It expires Friday, November 1.
The cut in benefits affects children, the elderly, people with disabilities and veterans, according to Tara Lee with the non-partisan research group Washington State Budget and Policy Center.
The typical family of three that receives food stamps will lose about $29 a month in benefits.
“Members of Congress say, ‘Well, charity will pick it up,’ but the level of what we’re talking about here, over a million people, I don’t think that the food banks and others can absorb those additional folks,” said Lee.
About 6.1 percent of Washington families lack proper nutrition, according to the Washington State Budget and Policy Center.
