Under President Trump’s newly proposed budget, about 80 percent of SNAP recipients could lose about half of the credit that is currently put on their EBT cards, and would receive a box of food from the government instead.
The director of the organization that represents the state’s food banks says it would destroy the safety net for low-income Ohioans and punish them instead.
The Ohio Association of Foodbanks’ Lisa Hamler Fugitt says taking away the ability to purchase food with SNAP benefits at grocery stores and giving recipients a box of non-refrigerated food items instead is a very bad idea.
“What is proposed would return us to literally the Depression-era days of how we served our most vulnerable during the Depression. This is absolutely shameful,” she says.
Hamler Fugitt says families use SNAP funds to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables and other food items and getting less money to do that would hurt not only those families but farmers and others in the supply chain.
Hamler Fugitt says it would probably end up costing the government more in the long run.
