Julia Anderson
President Biden took action to combat these issues by signing orders linked to food stamps and stimulus checks.
Have you made it through the COVID-19 pandemic unscathed? Even if you have in terms of health, you’ve probably been negatively impacted when it comes to your finances. Sure, you could have kept your job, but chances are you may have been furloughed for a while. Or you lost hours, resulting in a loss of income. And if your company saw losses due to shutdowns, you may have also missed out on any year-end bonuses that normally helped you stay afloat.
2023
Tax Forgiveness
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While many lost their jobs and income, that didn’t put an end to their monthly bills. Despite moratoriums on evictions, the other bills kept coming. And one bill that never ends since we need it to survive is food.
As the pandemic hit our wallets hard, many saw their nutrition suffer. If you’ve never been on food assistance before, you may have applied for food stamps or SNAP benefits. This popular food assistance program allows families to buy nutritious foods with monthly payouts put on an EBT card. And even though food stamps help, they still may not be enough.
To fix this, Joe Biden signed an order to increase food stamp funding. With it, he has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase food stamp allocations to states by 15 percent. If this sounds somewhat familiar, it’s because Congress recently passed something similar with a bill to make SNAP’s maximum benefit 15 percent higher. While this could have given struggling families some much-needed help, the change left out 40 percent of SNAP recipients who already received the maximum benefit.
Biden’s new order includes more families instead of leaving them out in the cold. By adding 15 percent to food stamp funding, 12 million people could get additional SNAP benefits, which can come in handy in times like these.
Joe Biden’s assistance-increasing moves didn’t stop there, however, as he also sought to expand the Pandemic-EBT program, which helps students from low-income families get meals that are free or at a reduced cost. Biden requested that the USDA boost Pandemic-EBT benefits by 15 percent. To ensure more students can receive such assistance, he also requested that the program be more inclusive. In doing so, three-children families could see an extra $100 in their pockets each month.
Pandemic-EBT isn’t the only food program Biden wants to make more accessible, as he said he wants to do the same with SNAP. By revamping the Thrifty Food Plan that determines SNAP payouts, more families could get the food assistance they need. As more families get food stamps, they can inject that money back into the economy, which would boost businesses’ income that produce, transport, and sell groceries.
What else can help you put food on the table besides food stamps, Pandemic-EBT, and the like? Cold, hard cash, and Biden signed an order to quickly get $600 stimulus payments into the hands of eligible recipients. This is great news if you haven’t received your payment yet. Also, Biden said he would like to increase stimulus payments to $2,000, so you may be getting an additional $1,400 check if that passes.
