By Kristen Wild, President & CEO of Operation Food Search
While America likes to think of itself as the land of plenty, at least 13% of people face a shortage of food each day. You’ll find children, elderly residents, people with disabilities, veterans, and people who work hard but can’t stay in front of cost-of-living increases, representing the largest part of that number. They are people in cities and rural areas, people of all ages and ethnicities, people who live miles away from sources of nutritious food or who experience unexpected events like the tornado that ripped through St. Louis on May 16. It could be any of us.
The good news is that our local food bank network has stood strong over the past few years as we have been repeatedly tested. Operation Food Search serves 200,000 low-income people each month in Missouri and Illinois through our MetroMarket, school-based, food-as-medicine, and partner pantry programs. Food banks like ours are a part of a broad safety net our country built to keep families healthy and thriving.
The bad news is that, even if we dramatically increased our programs and services, we wouldn’t come close to meeting the need that will arise in our community if Congress’s proposed cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) take effect.
Right now, the U.S. House and Senate are inching toward enacting the largest cut to SNAP benefits in history – nearly 30% – as part of President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” These cuts would effectively gut the program and shift a large portion of the expense to the states.
Analysis conducted by the George Washington University places Missouri in the Top 10 states with deepest estimated relative reductions in federal SNAP funding, projecting that we will lose $630 million. Because of balanced-budget requirements, Missouri will be forced to consider whether to raise taxes, find other revenue, reduce provider reimbursement rates, or drop out of SNAP altogether.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that 150,000 Missourians will lose some or all of their SNAP benefits if the bill passes. That is enough people to fill every seat in Busch Stadium three times.
In Illinois, the CBO estimates the number of people at risk of losing some or all their SNAP benefits is 472,000, or enough to fill Chicago’s Soldier Field seven and a half times.
The consequences of cutting this program are profound. Children who come to school hungry have less focus, more behavioral problems, and lower grades. Adults who cannot access nutritious food have decreased productivity and more costly health problems. The ripple effect will be felt throughout the economy when people have to dramatically shift their spending to accommodate food prices.
During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, a task force on food assistance stated that the symptoms of hunger were not just experienced by a person with an empty belly; they were symptoms of a larger societal problem. Representatives from Missouri and Illinois have the ability to stand up for people across our states by preserving the safety net that cares for us all. I urge them to vote NO on any bill that decreases SNAP benefits. You can contact your Representative at house.gov to share your concerns.
