It’s not just the price of eggs putting the squeeze on household budgets. Families across Texas are struggling to find affordable food and healthcare, pay their rent, and put gas in the car.
For the food banks in the Feeding Texas network, including the West Texas Food Bank, which serves Presidio and 18 other counties in the region, this means more people needing emergency food assistance. Across the state, we are witnessing demand we have not seen since the height of the pandemic. From seniors living on fixed incomes, to veterans unable to find work, to families with children juggling a tight budget, too many Texans are hurting.
Unfortunately, it’s not over. Rising prices and slower economic growth have led financial analysts at JP Morgan to calculate a 60% likelihood of an economic recession within the year.
With all these flashing red lights, why is Congress contemplating cuts that will take away food from millions of vulnerable Texans?
We’re talking about SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides a grocery benefit to eligible Texas families living in or near poverty. SNAP is designed to combat recessions by stabilizing family budgets, food retailers, and the farm economy alike. And it currently helps 3.5 million Texans contend with the rising cost of food — most of them kids, seniors, and people with disabilities.
Though you won’t find an overt reference to SNAP cuts in the budget bill that passed in Congress, you will see an agreement to eliminate $230 billion from agricultural and nutrition programs. SNAP represents three-quarters of the funding under that knife, making massive cuts inevitable.
You will hear these cuts framed as a way to rein in government waste or abuse. Thoughtful efficiency is a good thing in any program, and Texas is a leader in fraud prevention, detection, and enforcement. But you simply can’t make large cuts to SNAP without hurting people.
To achieve that massive $230 billion cut, the only ways to make the math work are to reduce the number of people SNAP helps, or reduce the amount of help they receive. With the average SNAP benefit just $2 per meal, any reduction in food assistance — particularly when grocery prices remain high — will lead to more families facing hunger. Now is simply not the time to take food away from seniors, children, and veterans.
Recent reports suggest Congress is considering a third option — forcing states to make impossible decisions about what and whom to cut. By requiring states to pay for a portion of SNAP benefits, Congress could move this cost off their books. The need wouldn’t go away — like squeezing a balloon, the pressure would land on state legislatures to either make up the gap or take the blame for increasing hunger. With this unfunded mandate, the federal government would quietly pass the buck to Texas officials, forcing them to make unpopular and harmful cuts affecting millions of Texans.
We estimate that if Texas was required to cover just 10% of SNAP benefits starting next year, state legislators would need to find $717 million in new revenue to keep the program whole. If they opted not to, 267 million meals would disappear from the tables of low-income Texans.
Offloading the cost of SNAP onto states abandons a 50-year national commitment to assist families with affording an adequate diet, no matter where they live. If enacted, this budgetary sleight-of-hand would fundamentally alter the structure of a popular program, eroding its ability to guarantee a basic need during natural and economic disasters.
The knock-on effects would also be disastrous. Schools would have a reduced capacity to provide free meals to students in need. Texas farmers and food retailers would see lower sales, potentially worsening any recession. And food banks would not be able to keep up with the increased needs of families who will lose their access to SNAP.
SNAP is more than a nutrition program, it is a smart investment in our local, state and national economies. The program has a high return on investment that fuels economic activity across the nation. According to USDA’s SNAP Multiplier report, $1 billion in SNAP benefits generates around $1.54 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) — a 54% return on investment. This supports 13,560 new jobs — including $32 million in added income going to agricultural industries that support 480 agricultural jobs.
In the 2024 calendar year, SNAP payments generated an estimated $10.73 billion in economic activity for Texas. SNAP is also responsible for supporting more than 94,000 jobs in Texas and more than 2 billion meals for Texas families in need in 2024.
If current proposals move forward, hungry families will suffer, food businesses will suffer, and our overall economy will be weaker. But it’s not too late. While Congress’ recent actions portend serious cuts to SNAP, legislators can demand that the program be held harmless in any final bill.
SNAP is our nation’s first line of defense against hunger. If we weaken the program, hunger will persist and grow, becoming an even more costly problem to be addressed in the future.
Texas leaders should make their stance clear: we should not take food assistance away from millions of Americans. Instead, we should pass a strong farm bill that strengthens our economy and our nation’s ability to feed itself.
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Libby Stephens is the CEO of West Texas Food Bank. The West Texas Food Bank serves 19 counties, including Andrews, Borden, Brewster, Crane, Dawson, Ector, Glasscock, Howard, Jeff Davis, Loving, Martin, Midland, Pecos, Presidio, Reeves, Terrell, Upton, Ward, and Winkler with food and resources.
Celia Cole is the CEO of Feeding Texas, a statewide network of food banks leading a unified effort to end hunger in Texas.