Government
Food Aid Doesn't Cover the Price of Food in Almost Every County in America
A new map shows that SNAP benefits lag behind need, even as the GOP mulls different ways to cut back on food aid.
Nélida Bustamante is a savvy shopper. A 37-year-old resident of Chicago, she seeks out the savings that allow her to buy fresh groceries for her family. Fruit that is more ripe and a little cheaper, for example, or meat when it’s on sale. She doesn’t like feeding her children food out of a can if she can help it. They don’t like canned stuff either, she says. It lacks flavor.
Bustamante receives about $210 a month in food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). It’s tough to make do with the unsteady wages from her job at a soap factory, so she has to make every purchase count.