Extra food assistance cushioned the early pandemic's blow on kids' mental health

Grace Melo, ACES Faculty Fellow, Texas A&M University, Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr., Professor of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, and Pourya Valizadeh, Research Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, The Conversation on Mar 27, 2023

Published in Business News

While 2020’s extra SNAP benefits protected children’s mental and emotional health, they did not improve it. This suggests that actually reducing food insecurity for low-income families would have required additional steps.

In March 2023, the federal government ended the pandemic-era SNAP expansions in 35 states and territories that hadn’t yet rolled them back. With inflation driving the cost of groceries up 11.4% in 2022, we believe that losing these benefits threatens the well-being of millions of families.

We are now studying the effects of pandemic-related changes to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC.

We are looking at, for example, how expanding WIC benefits to cover canned, frozen and dried fruits and vegetables in addition to fresh produce has affected the low-income families’ purchasing behavior. Our team for this research also includes public health and nutrition scholars Alexandra MacMillan Uribe and Elizabeth Racine,

When we did our study, data from the years after 2020 wasn’t yet available, so we couldn’t investigate the potential impact of subsequent pandemic-related changes to SNAP benefits. Notably, in 2021, the federal government increased maximum benefit levels by 15% and extended the extra $95 or more in monthly food assistance for the lowest-income households.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Grace Melo's research related for this article was supported by funding from the Texas A&M AgriLife Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture.

Pourya Valizadeh receives funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.

Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr. receives funding from U.S. Department of Agriculture.