Washington Story - Navigating SNAP Benefits and Potential Impacts of Policy Changes

Story: Suzette Espinoza-Cruz, Guardian and Caregiver, Seattle, WA

Washington State (March 13th 2025)

How might cuts to SNAP affect your family’s ability to buy and eat nutritious foods? 

As a guardian of my grandniece and grandnephew, aged two and four, I have relied on SNAP benefits to provide them with fresh fruits and vegetables. Additionally, programs like WIC have supported us in accessing essential items such as milk and cheese, ensuring the children receive necessary nutrition during their early developmental years.  

During the school year, Washington State’s program offers SNAP benefits over the summer, allowing us to maintain access to nutritious, USDA-approved meals when the children are home more often. Although the benefit wasn’t substantial—perhaps not even over $100—that amount helped carry us through to the end of the month, alleviating some financial burdens and extending our budget to cover other essentials like rent.  

However, with the rising cost of food, we’ve had to make adjustments, such as cutting eggs from our diet due to their expense, even though they were once an affordable protein source for us. Potential cuts to SNAP benefits would force us to tighten our budget further, possibly eliminating small luxuries like gymnastics classes for the kids or reducing our meals from three to two per day. In our Latina family, there’s an unspoken tradition where the mother eats last to ensure her children and partner are fed, often leading her to go without eating. This practice might become more common in our household to stretch the food budget, meaning someone would inevitably go hungry.  

Transportation and rent costs continue to rise, especially in Washington State, where there are no protections against rent increases. With nutritious food becoming more expensive, it’s increasingly challenging to provide well-balanced meals for the children.  

How might changes to SNAP work requirements affect your family’s ability to receive benefits and buy the food you need? Can you share any experiences where meeting current requirements has been difficult and impacted your family’s access to food? 

Reflecting on my own experiences, I recall during my college years, I found myself couch surfing and applied for SNAP benefits to ensure I had food while balancing work and studies. This support was crucial, especially for young adults transitioning from systems like foster care, who often work minimum wage jobs with limited budgets for necessities like food. Most of their income goes toward books, rent, and transportation, making additional relief from programs like SNAP vital to prevent hunger and support their education.  

Hunger impairs concentration and learning, increasing the risk of failing classes or exhibiting behavioral issues in younger students. Ensuring access to food through programs like SNAP is essential for academic success and future opportunities, helping lift individuals out of poverty through education and career advancement.  

Moreover, SNAP benefits not only support individuals but also bolster local economies by aiding farmers who participate in these programs, ensuring communities have access to affordable, healthy food. Cuts to these benefits could lead to increased suffering, which is remarkable considering the wealth of our nation.  

Therefore, maintaining and improving SNAP benefits is crucial for both individual well-being and the broader community’s health and economic stability. 

Any final thoughts for leadership? 

I’ve never lived through a famine because I grew up in the breadbasket of the world, right? The United States of America has long been known as the breadbasket of the world, and oftentimes, we ship food to other countries experiencing severe famines, where the population has lost the ability to feed itself. 

I feel like with this benefit going away and the increasing uncertainty of the climate, it might seem like hyperbole, but it’s becoming more of a reality that we will see people going hungry in the U.S. 

Particularly if safety net programs—basic needs programs—like SNAP go away, we will see a great deal of suffering among Americans. This is quite remarkable, considering that we are one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It would be incredibly sad if that happened.