Food Insecurity Rising in Midwest

OMAHA (DTN) -- More of your neighbors and townsfolk across the Midwest could be turning to local food pantries for help instead of receiving federal help in the coming years.

Leaders at regional food banks and pantries say they are increasingly worried about plans in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" to cut spending for the country's main nutrition support, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), once known as food stamps.

DTN interviewed leaders at three food banks and pantries covering parts of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, including the major metro areas of Des Moines, Kansas City and Omaha. Despite each state reporting low unemployment, each charitable organization continues to see greater demand for food aid than they even saw during the pandemic. They also said the need is even higher in the rural areas they serve.

Each of them said they would not be able to handle greater food needs if Congress follows through with cuts to SNAP over the next decade.

The House reconciliation bill would cut SNAP spending by $287 billion over 10 years, but those cuts are scaled back in the Senate package down to an estimated $211 billion.

The Senate could start voting on its version of the bill as early as Friday, though Senate parliamentarian rulings rejecting Medicaid cuts on Thursday could stall the bill's advance.

For SNAP, the latest Senate package would block USDA from increasing benefits without a vote of Congress. It would also tighten work requirements for able-bodied adults, raising the working age limit from 55 to 64 and require parents with children over age 14 to work. The bill also restricts the Agriculture secretary from offering waivers to SNAP work requirements based on areas with higher unemployment rates. Combined, the work requirements would reduce SNAP spending by $92 billion over 10 years.

States would also have to increase their share of the administration costs for SNAP from 50% to 75% of the bill, a $27 billion shift over 10 years.

Another big-ticket item was cleared late Thursday -- one that the Senate parliamentarian had originally opposed. After some changes to the language, the bill will require states to pay a share of SNAP benefits based upon a USDA calculation payment error rates. The Senate package was more lenient than the House but would still shift an estimated $41 billion to states over 10 years.

"This paves the way for important reforms that improve efficiency and management of SNAP while encouraging responsible use of taxpayer dollars," said Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., chairman of the Senate Ag Committee. "In 2023 alone, over $10 billion was misspent when administering this program -- underscoring the need for stronger accountability. Our commonsense approach encourages states to adopt better practices, reduce error rates, be better stewards of taxpayer dollars, and prioritize the resources for those who truly need it."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., ranking member of the committee, denounced the decision. Collectively, an estimated 4 million are projected to lose SNAP benefits, including 1.4 million who live in areas where it is hard to find a job.

"Congressional Republicans have chosen to cut food assistance for millions of Americans to give tax breaks to billionaires," Klobuchar said. "Instead of working with Democrats to lower costs for Americans, Congressional Republicans are doubling down on shifting costs to states that they simply cannot bear. We'll keep fighting these proposals that raise grocery costs and take food away from millions of people, including seniors, children, and veterans."

SNAP ERROR RATE PAYMENTS

Under the Senate plan, states with SNAP payment error rates between 6%-8% would pay a 5% share of SNAP benefits starting in 2028. States with error rate from 8%-10% would pay a 10% share of benefits. And states with error rates higher than 10% would pay a 15% share.

Nationally, the average SNAP payment error rate for overpayments is 10%, according to USDA's FY 2023 numbers. Iowa's overpayment rate was 4.43% while Nebraska was 5.95%. Those rates fall below levels in which Congress would demand those states pay a cost share.

The overpayment rate in Missouri was just over 10% while Kansas reports 11.33%. If that were to hold in FY 2026, both of those states would pay 15% of SNAP benefits -- or potentially cut benefits to people. If that plan holds, that SNAP cost shift would translate into roughly $228 million a year in Missouri and $59 million a year in Kansas, based on USDA reports of monthly SNAP payments to states.

Klobuchar held a call Wednesday with Democratic governors from Delaware, Kansas, and Kentucky, each of whom criticized the federal shift to push more SNAP costs onto states. Twenty-three governors signed a letter warning against SNAP cuts and shifting costs to states. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said nearly 190,000 people in Kansas are enrolled in SNAP. Even without paying a percentage of the error rate, the state of Kansas would end up spending $15.5 million a year just in higher administrative costs.

"This reckless legislation would force kids to go hungry and increase costs for all Americans," Kelly said. "On top of that, it would hurt our grocers, especially in our rural communities."

SHIFTING TO FOOD CHARITY

The pressure to replace SNAP would fall on food banks that are already seeing greater demand for their services while dealing with their own cuts in federal aid. Local food banks operate parallel to SNAP, but they only typically help a small share compared to SNAP.

HARVESTERS -- THE COMMUNITY FOOD NETWORK

Harvesters -- The Community Food Network provides food to a collection of local food banks and pantries across 10 counties in Missouri and 17 counties in Kansas surrounding the Kansas City metro area.

Rising food insecurity in the region tracks with national trends as well, said Stephen Davis, CEO of Harvesters.

"Our demand, the level of food insecurity is actually higher than it's been in a decade and so we're seeing more neighbors that are food insecure than we've seen, and that includes during the pandemic," Davis said. He added, "We're not particularly higher than the national trend. It's just that the national trend is also high, unfortunately."

In Harvesters' Kansas-Missouri territory, the group provides roughly 55 million meals a year, but Davis noted for every meal the group provides, SNAP provides nine meals.

"So, imagine a local church today that has a pantry and perhaps they're serving 300 people in their community coming to the church to receive food assistance," Davis said. "Now imagine if that doubled, tripled or quadrupled. How would that church or that non-profit be able to serve everybody because we don't have the food donations to make up for that gap. So therein lies the problem. The level of need is going to go up, but we don't have the volume of charitable food to make up that gap."

THE DES MOINES AREA RELIGIOUS COUNCIL

Luke Elzinga is policy and advocacy manager for the Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC), which works with 14 food pantries in the area as well as mobile food pantries.

Two years ago, after pandemic SNAP benefits were reduced, DMARC saw demand at its pantry network soar. The volume of growth has slowed but food pantries continue seeing higher needs for aid across the network. Elzinga said that's basically the case across Iowa.

"Things have slowed down in terms of the percentage of increase, but when I talk to folks around the state, I can't think of anyone who told me they are seeing less people right now," Elzinga said. "The rosiest picture is that things have kind of leveled off."

Looking at the potential SNAP cuts and proposed cuts to the separate Women and Infant Children (WIC) programs, Elzinga expects to see demand at food pantries continue to increase as those cuts play out.

Iowa's SNAP waiver plan, which eliminates SNAP payments for sodas and candy, also includes a plan for Iowa officials to evaluate the waiver impacts by using funds from SNAP-Ed, a program that helps educate people about their food benefits. Other states getting SNAP waivers have made the same pitch to USDA. But the budget reconciliation bills in both the House and Senate also eliminate the $536 million a year SNAP-Ed program.

FOOD BANK FOR THE HEARTLAND

The Food Bank for the Heartland, based in Omaha, serves all 77 counties across Nebraska and another 17 counties in western Iowa. The food bank saw food demand rise during the pandemic, but much like other food banks and pantries, the demand just continues to grow.

"We're seeing elevated and higher needs now. It's higher than it ever was during COVID, and we could say it's even more disproportionately felt in our more rural parts of the state than it is in our more urban areas," said Tim Williams, director of advocacy and government relations for Food Bank for the Heartland.

UNEMPLOYMENT ISN'T THE ISSUE

The unemployment rate in Nebraska is 3%; Iowa is 3.6%; Kansas is 3.8%; and Missouri is 4%. The national average in May was 4.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The perception among leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees is that the need for food aid largely goes away once people have jobs.

Food bank leaders say that's not really the case.

"Most of the people we assist at our food pantry network who are of working age and are able to work are out there working," Elzinga said. "There's a misunderstanding from our elected officials of what hunger and food insecurity even looks like."

DMARC over the years has built up some statistical profiles of its food-pantry customers. At DMARC, only about 15% of the people who come into the pantries are unemployed. More than half of the people who come in might visit a food pantry once or twice a year.

"We have had a lot of people over the past few years who are food pantry visitors for the first time," Elzinga said. "They are working full-time, part-time or acting as a care giver for a child or other family member. They are working hard, but struggling to get by because their pay is inadequate. Or they had inadequate benefits and they are turning to food pantries to make ends meet."

More than one-third of the people supported by charitable food are children. Then the next biggest group are seniors on Social Security or people receiving disability benefits. That tracks across the food banks and pantries in the Midwest.

"Food insecurity is not completely about employment," Davis said. "The large population of food-insecure people are children who obviously don't work and so they are in a family that is struggling to make ends meet. It's consistently been that way. The rate of child food insecurity is higher than that of adults. And then, of course, you have a growing senior population that are living on fixed incomes, but their costs have gone up ... You need somewhere to live, you need to go to the doctor, you need to pay for your medication. So, they are often forced to forego purchasing food to try to make ends meet and tap into the charitable food system to help make ends meet."

USDA CUTS TO FOOD CHARITIES

Beyond seeing more people coming into food pantries, Heartland's Williams said the Nebraska-western Iowa food bank is stretched thin trying to meet the rising demand. A lot of that stems from rollbacks in federal commodities, he said.

"Right now, that is the really big struggle point," Williams said.

Heartland lost just over $2 million in food across its network this spring that had been planned out for the federal fiscal year through September.

"That was on our calendars and then rolled back and canceled without any real notice and these were things like milk, eggs, other dairy proteins and meat sources and fresh produce that we had built into our sourcing calendar," Williams said. "These were really valuable and high-need products. So that was a really big hit."

In mid-March USDA froze $500 million in food deliveries expected to food banks nationally under The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), or roughly half the funding that was expected for the year. USDA later filled some of the gap by announcing $262 million in surplus food acquired in 2024 would be delivered to states this year.

"We've seen semi-loads of food that was canceled," DMARC's Elzinga said, estimating Iowa lost about $3.8 million in food deliveries, all told. "And a lot of that food being canceled was food in really high demand and not cheap, things like eggs, milk and fresh produce. Those are things that food pantries really value and want more of, but it costs a lot for them to obtain it on their own."

The TEFAP cuts came shortly after USDA also canceled nearly $660 million in food contracts under the Local Food Purchasing Agreement (LFPA) program, which gave money to states to source food from local farmers to go to charity providers. The Trump administration concluded LFPA was a pandemic-era program and no longer needed, though it had boosted sales for as many as 8,000 farmers nationally.

In the Kansas City area, TEFAP provided about 2.2 million pounds of food out of roughly 61 million pounds Harvester distributes annually. LFPA provided less, but it offered local produce, protein and dairy products from farmers in the region.

"All of these programs were really great for farmers, but also really good for the work that we do and helped with our mission," Davis said.

based on USDA estimates of farmers' value for every food dollar, that SNAP cuts would also lead to roughly $24 billion in lost farm revenue over 10 years as well.

See, "Senate Ag Reconciliation Bill Offers Farmers Better Options for 2025 Programs," https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Also see, "Senate Tax Package Would Allow Foreign Feedstocks to Qualify for 80% of 45Z Tax Credit," https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Also see, "Six Tax Changes Made for Farm Businesses in the 'One Big Beautiful Bill,'" https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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