Elizabeth Wolkomir
Center on Budget
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Past articles by Elizabeth:
Letting SNAP Participants Buy Dietary Supplements With Their Benefits Could Leave Them Hungry
As the Senate considers the Agriculture Committee’s farm bill this week, it should avoid a provision in the House-passed farm bill that would let SNAP participants use their benefits to buy dietary supplements, such as multivitamins. → Read More
House Plan to Corporatize SNAP Would Likely Disrupt Food Assistance for Poor
The House could vote again this week on a partisan farm bill that, among its harmful nutrition provisions, would let states turn all SNAP (formerly food stamp) operations over to private corporations. → Read More
House Farm Bill, Which May Face Another Vote, Even Worse Due to Recent Amendments
The partisan farm bill that the House rejected today would increase food insecurity and hardship for low-income families and make SNAP harder to administer. The fight over the bill isn’t over, however, because House Republicans can call for another vote on it. → Read More
Will Chairman Conaway’s SNAP Proposal Match His Rhetoric?
The Chairman has said that his proposal won’t cut SNAP. Based on press reports, however, it likely will include damaging cuts to food benefits. → Read More
SNAP Helped Millions After Hurricanes, Highlighting How Many Are Barely Getting By
SNAP (formerly food stamps) helped millions put food on the table in the months after the fall hurricanes in Florida, Texas, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show. Some 3.6 million people received temporary disaster SNAP benefits in October alone. That’s a reminder of how many Americans are barely getting by, and are just one misfortune… → Read More
How Is Food Assistance Different in Puerto Rico Than in the Rest of the United States?
While other major federal nutrition programs operate in Puerto Rico the same as in other states and territories, it is disadvantaged with respect to household food assistance. → Read More
Puerto Rico Needs More Food Assistance During Recovery
“Of all Puerto Rico’s continuing miseries… the most blatantly unjust is that Islanders have been denied the more generous and swifter food relief distributed to storm victims this year in Texas and Florida under the emergency food stamp program,” the New York Times editorialized recently. → Read More
Policymakers Should Now Turn to Puerto Rico’s Longer-Term Recovery
Now that Congress has passed a supplemental funding package that includes food assistance for Puerto Rico — enabling the Agriculture Department to work with the Commonwealth to design, fund, and implement a disaster plan to give hurricane-affected residents the food they need over the coming weeks — policymakers should take steps that will fuel Puerto Rico’s longer-term economic and structural… → Read More
With House Passage, Senate Now Must Pass Critical Food Assistance for Puerto Rico
The House has passed a $36.5 billion aid package that includes critical funding for additional food assistance for needy households affected by hurricanes, including in Puerto Rico. Given reports of food shortages and other hardship on the island, the Senate should now move swiftly to pass legislation that includes this disaster food assistance. → Read More
USDA Lets Puerto Ricans Buy Hot Meals With Food Benefits
Some media have reported — incorrectly — that the U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) denied Puerto Rico’s request to let recipients of the territory’s main food assistance program use their benefits to buy hot, ready-to-eat foods, which program rules don’t typically allow. We’d like to correct the record. → Read More
SNAP Designed to Respond Effectively, Quickly to Disaster
As the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) continues to work with states to rapidly and effectively provide food to those affected by recent hurricanes, it’s worth exploring the three key design features of SNAP (formerly food stamps) that make its effective disaster response possible: → Read More
USDA Acts Quickly to Get Food to Hurricane Harvey-Affected Families
Government and voluntary organizations are working quickly to help families affected by Hurricane Harvey, including by performing the critical task of ensuring that people can get enough to eat now and in the weeks ahead. Poor families that lost food due to flooding and power outages can ill afford to replace it. And, for those that will be out of their homes for some time, feeding their… → Read More
SNAP Boosts Retailers and Local Economies
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, previously food stamps) is an important public-private partnership that helps families afford a basic diet, generates business for retailers, and boosts local economies. → Read More
Voices from SNAP’s Founding Warn Against Anti-Hunger Backslide
Proposed massive cuts in SNAP, like those in President Trump’s budget, represent “a stunning attempt to reverse the slow but steady progress we have made” against hunger in recent decades, Georgetown Law Professor Peter Edelman and Rep. Joe Kennedy III explain in a Time op-ed. → Read More