More than six decades after it was signed into law, the program known as SNAP is at risk

Monday marks 62 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Food Stamp Act into law, making food stamps (which are now known as SNAP benefits) permanent.

Before SNAP, anyone who struggled to afford food was effectively on their own.

“What people turned to was whatever might be available in terms of charity in their local communities,” said Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.

There was no comprehensive, government response to food insecurity. “That is one of the things that's been powerful about SNAP, is that it was available everywhere. If you met the eligibility requirements, you received it,” Waxman said.

For decades, she said SNAP has been highly effective at reducing food insecurity and poverty. That was President Johnson’s goal, explained Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies and associate director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution

The day he signed the law, Johnson said, “‘as a permanent program, the food stamp plan will be one of our most valuable weapons for the war on poverty,’ and I think that that's been true,” said Bauer.

But it’s starting to change. Congress approved major funding cuts to SNAP last summer and introduced new work requirements.

Already, Bauer said more than five million people have lost their benefits. “Enrollment in the SNAP program is continuing to decline in every state, and what we are seeing here is the potential for states to drop out of the program entirely.”

Because starting next year, states will have to help fund SNAP for the first time, and many states don’t have the money, said Tim Shaw, director of the Benefits Transformation Initiative at the Aspen Institute’s Financial Security Program.

“The vast majority of states have to balance their budgets every year, and so they don't have flexibility,” he said — which could mean that in some states, more than 60 years of food assistance could soon come to an end.