Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives want to make big cuts to the federal budget as a condition of raising the national debt ceiling. Where do they want to start? Food stamps, of course. And that could have a big impact on Kansas and Missouri.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is reportedly eyeing stringent new work requirements for participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, the formal name for what many folks still refer to as food stamps. We don’t know the precise details of what he and the House GOP plan to propose — after months of dithering, Republicans still haven’t offered the public a precise list of cuts they want to make.
But we do know that any effort to tighten up access to the food program will inevitably make life harder for poor and hungry people in Kansas and Missouri. In 2022, nearly 200,000 Kansas residents — roughly 7% of the population — were served by the program. In Missouri, SNAP served more than 650,000 residents, or about 11% of the population. And in both states, two-thirds of those recipients were in families with children.
