BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Hundreds of thousands of families in Massachusetts are set to lose an extra boost of food stamp benefits.
Starting in March 2020, the federal government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also called SNAP, issued additional benefits to millions of Americans to help with food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those additional benefits ended in most states Wednesday and will end in Massachusetts Thursday, March 2.
Roughly 647,000 Massachusetts families will lose an average of $150 a month from the extra SNAP payments, according to the Department of Transitional Assistance.
The end of the extra benefits comes at a time when food prices have soared due to inflation.
"People are worried. They're worried about how am I going to afford food when costs of everything are high right now," Erin McAleer, President and CEO of food assistance charity Project Bread, told WBZ NewsRadio Wednesday. "People are constantly making trade-offs. You have to pay your housing bills to keep your housing, you have to pay for your childcare, you have to pay for your transportation. So food is often the trade-off."
Gov. Maura Healey set aside $130 million in her supplemental budget to keep the extra SNAP benefits going for another three months. Massachusetts lawmakers will vote Wednesday on whether to approve the funds.
WBZ's Brooke McCarthy (@BrookeWBZ) reports.
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