Food Stamps

Enrollment in public assistance programs in Pennsylvania continues to climb due to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, though state human service officials say federal unemployment aid and other programs have kept even more people from falling into poverty.

Food insecurity has increased by more than 40 percent in southwestern Pennsylvania, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact, according to one new estimate.

More Pennsylvanians will likely need help paying for groceries as the economy remains shutdown due to the coronavirus. But as the pandemic pokes holes in social safety net programs, there are new obstacles for food stamps recipients.

To avoid going out in public, many are turning to online ordering and delivery for basic necessities like groceries. But the coronavirus has created obstacles for many who rely on food stamps. In many states  people who receive benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are not allowed to use their benefits to order groceries online and have them delivered.

More than 1,800 low-income Allegheny County residents could lose access to food assistance under a new Trump administration rule that tightens work requirements for able-bodied adults without kids. 

Immigrant families, including U.S. citizens, are avoiding certain safety net programs because of a “chilling effect” tied to a controversial proposal to tighten the country’s standards for granting green cards and temporary visas, according to a report released Wednesday by the Urban Institute.

It remains unclear how long low-income Pennsylvanians will continue to receive food stamps if the federal government's partial shutdown extends into February.

On Friday Congressman Keith Rothfus, a conservative Republican from Sewickley, joined Democrats in voting down a farm bill that would have imposed new limits on food benefits.

Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled House of Representatives is advancing legislation to stop the state from getting waivers that allow food stamp recipients to continue receiving the federal benefit if they don't meet work requirements.

The Republican-penned bill passed 108-79 on Tuesday, and headed to the Senate.

The Wolf administration says the state’s food stamps program is making fewer mistakes, marking its lowest error rate in 29 years of keeping records.

“We’re not giving anything to the wrong people and we’re doing this the right way,” said Governor Tom Wolf on Wednesday. The lower error rate is estimated to save as much as $35 million in federal money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

President Barack Obama's health care law has had a surprising side effect: In some states, it appears to be enticing more Americans to apply for food stamps, even as the economy improves.

New, streamlined application systems built for the health care overhaul are making it easier for people to enroll in government benefit programs, including insurance coverage and food stamps.

Lost paperwork, benefit delays, being hung up on or treated rudely – those are just some of the problems faced by some residents of Allegheny County as they try to navigate through the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare for either food assistance or health benefits. On Wednesday, Just Harvest, an agency which helps connect people to services, held a meeting with DPW Secretary Beverly Mackareth and concerned residents who outlined problems they’ve had and some of what they’d like to see going forward.

Starting November 1, families receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also referred to as food stamps, will see the amount of assistance drop. That’s because a boost in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the federal stimulus, expires.

“We have 1.8 million individuals who receive the SNAP benefit in Pennsylvania,” said Carey Miller, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. “We would expect that there would be about a 5 percent reduction to those individual SNAP benefits.”