Cuts in Food Stamps Hurt Rural Areas

Heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, All Things Considered a rather depressing story about how reductions in food stamp spending is expected to have a particularly deleterious effect on rural families.  

Here is how the story (4 minutes)  began: 

One recent evening, some shoppers at the Countryside Market in Belvidere, Ill., were loading up on staples, like milk and eggs. Others, like Meghan Collins, were trying to plan Thanksgiving on a newly tightened budget.

“My work has been cut,” says Collins. “I’m working half the hours I used to work. So yeah, I’m making half of what I made last year.”

That could be bad news for stores like Countryside, which are already bracing for the ripple effect from the recent $5 billion reduction in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. It’s the first Thanksgiving since a temporary increase in those benefits expired on Nov. 1, affecting some 47 million Americans.