Key Point: “Food distribution programs are getting less food from federal programs to feed the hungry after cuts by the Trump administration. At the same time, restrictions on food stamps from the Republicans’ ‘big, beautiful bill’ have driven up demand, while rising gas prices because of the Iran war have cut into the budgets of households and food banks alike. … ‘Sometimes I just sit down and cry when I’m trying to figure out what you’re going to eat out of a can or something because you don’t have no meat,’ Girvin said as her eyes welled with tears. ‘It’s just really bad, this economy. It’s horrible.’”
NBC News: Hunger grips a rural community hit by Trump’s cuts
By Shannon Pettypiece
- Food distribution programs are getting less food from federal programs to feed the hungry after cuts by the Trump administration. At the same time, restrictions on food stamps from the Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” have driven up demand, while rising gas prices because of the Iran war have cut into the budgets of households and food banks alike.
- Food banks’ struggles started in the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term when officials cut a $400 million Covid-era program to supply food banks with food from local farmers and paused an estimated $500 million in other planned food purchases by the USDA.
- Trump also signed into law the new restrictions on who can receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps, requiring nearly all able-bodied adults not caring for young children to work, volunteer or go to school at least 80 hours a month. Since the law was enacted, more than 5 million people, including at least 1 million children, have lost their food benefits.
- Facing Hunger Foodbank, which supplies Likens’ pantry and others across Appalachia, has seen a 25% increase in the number of people seeking help over the past year, while the amount of food the federal government supplies has fallen by a third, CEO Cyndi Kirkhart said.
- Those forces have hit especially hard in areas that were already struggling economically, like West Virginia’s once-flourishing coal mining communities. The spike in gas costs means a 45-minute drive to the nearest grocery store can set residents back more than $15. And West Virginians who must comply with the new work requirements to receive food benefits are confronting a lack of jobs and training programs. Since last summer, about 24,000 people, including 8,000 children, have lost food stamps, according to the West Virginia Department of Human Services.
- “It’s like the pandemic on steroids without funds,” Kirkhart said.
- Girvin, 73, used to own a restaurant nearby and is now living off Social Security, which is barely enough to cover her monthly bills. Already on a tight budget, she has no extra room for $4 gallons of gas or a rising electric bill. That has left one place to cut — her food.
- She said she has lost 20 pounds over the past year because she has been eating less. The night before, she’d eaten canned deer meat left over from last fall’s hunting season with rice and gravy. Some nights she eats a bag of frozen broccoli with butter.
- “Sometimes I just sit down and cry when I’m trying to figure out what you’re going to eat out of a can or something because you don’t have no meat,” Girvin said as her eyes welled with tears. “It’s just really bad, this economy. It’s horrible.”
- A few cars behind Girvin in line was Bonnie Newsome. She used to drive a school bus, but now, like Girvin, she’s struggling to afford groceries on her retirement income.
- Over the past year, she has been hit by a string of higher costs, including her electric bill, groceries and gas. With winter coming, she’s worried about affording propane to heat her house.
- “I really thought President Trump would move right on in and take care of everything,” Newsome said. “He’s disappointed me, he has.”
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