"It's going to hurt.": 300,000 South Carolinians prepare for major cuts in SNAP benefits February
Starting Feb. 1, nearly 300,000 South Carolinians who rely on SNAP benefits will face more challenges feeding themselves and their families.
Jan 18, 2023
Starting Feb. 1, nearly 300,000 South Carolinians who rely on SNAP benefits will face more challenges feeding themselves and their families.
Chad Scott with Harvest Hope Food Bank explained the benefits work a lot like food stamps and were bolstered by emergency funding during the pandemic.
"SNAP benefits have been maximized by the federal government since COVID started," he said. "At the end of this month will be the first time when they're back on income contingent. So, we expect that number of what we see in our lines every week to increase exponentially."
According to the USDA, that emergency funding gave families either $95 more a month for groceries or gave them the maximum amount they could receive based on their household size. Right now, a two-person household, like Greenville resident Lisa Marie Waller is eligible to receive $516 dollars a month for groceries. Starting February 1, that decreases to $250.
"It really scares me," she said. "It scares me about... how am I going to support her and me and us living like we're doing? It's going to hurt. It's going to hurt really bad. Because we really rely on it."
Waller and her daughter have been homeless for a little less than a year. When these changes go through, she'll have to decide between buying blankets and buying food in the dead of winter.
Harvest Hope has watched this problem grow since the end of certain pandemic emergency programs, like loosened restrictions on unemployment and free and reduced lunch. Scott said they're preparing for a nearly 30 percent increase in need starting February.
"All of those things have taken a toll, and we are now seeing numbers that are well above what we saw during the height of the pandemic because of the end of all the subsidies that were out there," he said.
Seventeen states have already ended their supplementary SNAP benefit funding. While South Carolina is ending its in February, the remaining 32 will end theirs in March.
https://www.wyff4.com/article/south-...ruary/42558113
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