The House Agriculture Committee voted in favor of slashing funding and benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, on May 14.
Proposed changes include requiring states to share a portion of SNAP benefit costs starting in 2028, limiting benefit increases, expanding work requirements for those receiving benefits, reducing the number of individuals exempt from work requirements and restricting eligibility to U.S. citizens or green card holders.
“It’s an incredibly bad idea. SNAP is one of our strongest anti-poverty programs, so we are pretty much literally taking food from poor people to give money to rich people,” Dr. Algernon Austin, director for race and economic justice at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said to The Final Call.
Experts say that SNAP cuts could potentially harm millions of families and worsen the country’s hunger crisis. In 2023, over 42 million people received monthly benefits from SNAP, with benefits averaging about $212 per participant, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. In that same year, about one out of seven people reported food insecurity.
Dr. Austin said SNAP also helps regenerate the economy. “You give them a dollar from SNAP, they’re going to buy food. You know it’s going to be spent. You know it’s going to circulate in the economy,” he said. “Giving these tax cuts to wealthy people doesn’t generate nearly as much economic activity as giving it to people in poverty.”
He shared how recession forecasts have been growing and explained that SNAP benefits can actually help during a recession. “You have a recession, more people are out of work, they don’t have money for food. They get SNAP benefits. That gives them money, too, and that helps counter the recession,” he said. “For every dollar you spend on SNAP, you get $1.50 worth of economic activity.”
The Urban Institute published an April 2025 report on the consequences of states sharing SNAP costs during a recession. If a recession likened to the one in 2008-2009 were to happen with the federal government fully paying for SNAP benefits.
Almost two million households experiencing job loss would apply for and receive SNAP benefits, a little over one million households already participating would qualify for higher benefits and 481,000 families experiencing job loss would be kept out of poverty, the report says.
If states shared 10 percent of SNAP benefit costs, “states would need to spend an additional $980 million to cover increased benefit costs in the first year of the recession,” according to the report.
“If states did not increase their spending during the recession and instead reduced benefits for all participants to control costs, all SNAP participants—not just those who lost jobs—would face an average annual benefit reduction of $327 per household, and 862,000 people would fall into poverty who would otherwise be out of poverty if SNAP were fully funded,” the report noted.
“States, generally, have to balance budgets. And I live in Maryland. Maryland is trying to find money to close its deficit. So, Maryland is already hurting. You can’t put any more burden on Maryland, and generally in other states,” Dr. Austin said.
“If you reduce federal funds for a particular program, that means that either the program will be cut by the state government, so you’re just shifting who’s going to do the cutting, or the state government will need to cut some other program. It’s just a way of passing the responsibility for the damage that you’re causing.”
Whites are the majority of the U.S. population, so they make up a larger percentage of those who receive SNAP benefits. According to the Food Research and Action Center, Whites make up about 37 % and Blacks 26 % of SNAP recipients.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, has warned the Black community for years that government assistance would eventually dry up. He urged Black people to look towards the land to provide for their needs.
“God does not allow His creatures not to be able to build a home for themselves—no creature! There is no ‘food line’ for the worm; the worm is doing fine. And the bird will come and eat the worm, and the bird is doing fine,” Minister Farrakhan said in a message titled
“Justice is the Joy of Freedom,” delivered on Nov. 20, 2010, in Rockford, Illinois. “Black bird is not in the line asking the white bird for food stamps. Black bird is feeding itself and its little black birds; and white bird is doing the same.”
During the COVID pandemic, food insecurity was a growing issue as businesses shut down and jobs were cut. “In 2020, one in four Black residents across the U.S. experienced food insecurity—more than three times the rate for white households—according to Feeding America.
The nation’s largest charitable hunger-relief organization,” noted the 2021 article, “The pandemic pushes more Black Americans to take up urban farming to fight ‘food apartheid.’,” found at thegroundtruthproject.org.
As a result, more Blacks began gardening and growing their own food.
Moving on and implementing the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad as taught by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, Brother Randy Muhammad and his wife, Sister Jamila Muhammad, started farming in Chicago before starting a bigger farm in LaGrange, Georgia, that offers fresh products.
“The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan admonished us, encouraged us and guided us to put a garden in your backyard,” Bro. Randy Muhammad said to The Final Call. “He understands that food is going to be scarce.”
The couple has taught others how to grow a lot of food in very small spaces.
“Each of these low-income housing places have a space in front of the house. I would even say it’s a four-by-eight patch of dirt or grass that you can actually put a small chicken. If not a chicken coop, you can develop something that looks like a bird house and put quails in there,” Bro.
Randy Muhammad said. “And you would get eggs from these quails or these small chickens every single day. So, if you get cuts, you’re not worried about buying eggs.”
Once an individual starts growing an abundance of food, they can also start canning their produce, he added.
Sister Jamila Muhammad encouraged people to “start now” and to start collecting knowledge about growing rights, about the best sunshine in their homes and about the best spots for certain vegetables to grow.
She has recently been getting into “container gardens,” growing plants in a pot or container rather than directly in the ground. She recommended the container garden method for those who do not have a backyard.
“Grow bags are a cheap container space that can be moved, but you can get packs of them instead of plastic containers or other containers that cost a little bit more.
But grow bags are a big thing that people use and can be changed and altered in the house, outside of the house,” she said. “You can use a certain part of your home. You can have an herb garden just right on the ledge of your window.”
And if the neighbors also get involved in growing, she said, then Black people would be able to trade amongst one another in their own community.
“We don’t have to grow all the things. We could just provide some of the things. If you get really good with your tomatoes and peppers, then I’ve got your garlic and I have your broccoli,” she said. “We have to start thinking that way. Allah (God) does promise us gardens, but not for this world. We have to create our own.”