Federal food stamp benefits – SNAP – being cut in February, will return to pre-pandemic level

Well, that didn’t take long for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reverse course.

After it was exposed that the federal government raised federal food stamp benefits to an all-time high last year, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) announced that the monthly payments would decrease in February.

FNS, which is an arm of the USDA, confirmed it would reduce the temporary boost in SNAP benefits after the February 2023 payment, which was approximately $95 per month.

“All SNAP households have or will see a decrease to the SNAP benefits they receive when emergency allotments end. Some SNAP households already experienced that change; others will in February or March 2023,” FNS said in the announcement.

The additional payments have already ended in more than a dozen states, including Alaska, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Wyoming. For the remaining states, the SNAP benefits amount will fall back to the pre-pandemic level.

It was recently reported that SNAP costs soared to an all-time high of $119.5 billion last year, more than double the pre-crisis level of $60.3 billion.