Cuts to Food Benefits Stand in the Way of RFK Jr.’s Goals for a Healthier National Diet

Belinda McLoyd has been thinking about peanut butter. McLoyd, 64, receives a small monthly payment through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously known as food stamps.

“They don’t give you that much to work with,” she said. To fit her tight budget, she eats ramen noodles — high on sodium and low on nutrition — multiple times a week.

If she had more money, said McLoyd, who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and heart problems, she’d buy more grapes, melons, chuck roast, ground turkey, cabbage, and turnip greens. That’s what she did when lawmakers nearly doubled her SNAP benefit during the pandemic.

But now that a GOP-led Congress has approved $186 billion in cuts to the food assistance program through 2034, McLoyd, who worked in retail until she retired in 2016, isn’t sure how she will be able to eat any healthy food if her benefits get reduced again.

McLoyd said her only hope for healthy eating might be to resort to peanut butter, which she heard “has everything” in it.