Up to 47 million Americans face more food insecurity because of proposed restrictions on SNAP food assistance program

Last November the increase in benefits to the SNAP program of food assistance, put in place in 2009 as part of the American Recovery Act, expired. Craig Gundersen gives an overview of SNAP, writing that in 2012 it provided benefits to more than 47 million people. He argues that recent proposals that would fundamentally change and reduce SNAP assistance will reduce food security and well-being by increasing the program’s stigma and transaction costs, meaning that fewer households will enter the program. This is in contrast to recent reductions in SNAP benefits which will have more limited impacts.