The cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that the Trump administration is implementing are going to be immediately devastating to communities of color and rural communities in particular. In the long term, though, they could have just as devastating effects on the health and well-being of millions of people, and ultimately on the nation’s economy.
Numerous studies have shown that access to healthy and adequate food improves health and saves money, as Austin Frakt and Elsa Pearson argue in a New York Times article on the recent work requirement rule for SNAP. While the administration says that it will save almost $8 billion in the next ten years, the authors point out that it is "not clear how much money would actually be saved, research suggests, given the costs that might come from a decline in the health and well-being of many of the country’s 14.3 million 'food-insecure' households."
Food insecurity, they write, is "linked to worse health outcomes, including poor mental health, high blood pressure and diabetes, with children particularly vulnerable." The work requirements will put more people into that food insecure category, people who are now the working poor. Dr. Seth A. Berkowitz, an internist and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, tells Frakt and Pearson, “The way these work requirements are imposed could pull support out from under people even when they are working."
One of the studies Berkowitz conducted found that food stamp benefits were associated with a decrease as high as $1,400 annually in healthcare spending per person among low-income people. Studies in Maryland and Massachusetts found that SNAP benefits for Medicaid and Medicare enrollees were associated with lower risks of hospitalization.
More people are going to be food insecure. More people are going to have to choose between feeding themselves and their families and getting preventive care. More people are going to be forced into eating cheaper and more easily available unhealthy food. More communities will bear the brunt of increased healthcare costs and decreased economic activity when people have to scrimp just to be able to eat.
This is going to cost so much more than $8 billion.