As of this year, five states are banning people who get food assistance, or SNAP benefits, from using it to buy sugary beverages and junk foods. More than a dozen others have passed similar bans that will go into effect in the coming months.
People who get SNAP have always faced some restrictions on what they can buy, one of the big ones being no hot, prepared foods.
“You can't use your SNAP benefit for, like, a rotisserie chicken at Costco, even though it's a really healthy and efficient way to feed your family,” said Lily Roberts, managing director of economic policy at the Center for American Progress.
These new state restrictions are ostensibly about making sure people spend their benefits on healthy foods, she added.
“But I will note that research suggests that the way to get people to buy healthy food is to give them additional benefits, not to restrict what they spend,” Roberts said.
Increasingly, however, states are restricting what people can buy, and it’s proving complicated for retailers to implement, said Stephanie Johnson, group vice president of government relations for the National Grocers Association.
“The good example in Oklahoma is granola bars with chocolate chips are in, but granola bars with a chocolate drizzle are out,” she said.
That’s confusing for store owners and for customers. Johnson is concerned about what could happen once USDA starts enforcing the new rules if a store accidentally lets someone use SNAP to buy that chocolate-drizzled granola bar.
“On your first strike, you get 30 days to correct,” Johnson said. “On your second strike, you lose your SNAP license.”
That would be a big hit — both to stores, which often rely on SNAP revenue, and to people in their communities who use benefits to buy groceries.
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