America's Talking - Episode 11: Inflation drives record increase in SNAP benefits

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

As inflation continues its upward trend, government programs are giving Americans raises to keep up. The Biden administration announced Monday a historic increase to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture updated the Thrifty Food Plan, a wide-ranging report that updates the expected cost to healthily feed a family of four. The federal food report cited inflation as the driving factor behind the need for more benefits, which is the biggest increase in the program's history. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America and Focus presented by the Center Square, the podcast where we talk about the week's news coming out of the nation's capital and how it impacts Americans back home. I'm Dan McCaleb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me in a moment will be Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. First, a couple of headlines. In the past week, two separate indicators were released that reinforce economists' concerns about the rapid rate of the number. inflation in the U.S. In one, the administration of President Joe Biden announced a historic increase in benefits paid out through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps. The program provides lower income families with benefits to purchase food. In the second,

analysts are predicting that the U.S. Social Security Program, which provides monthly benefits to the nation's retired citizens, also will see an historic cost of living increase. President Biden has strived to assuage fears of the rapidly rising inflation, which drives up consumer costs for all Americans, saying it's only temporary. But with both taxpayer-funded programs expecting significant cost of living increases, does that mean inflation is going to be with us for a while? This and more coming up right after this. Hi, this is Chris Krug, publisher of the Center Square. Our team produces the nationally read and recognized news stories at thecenter square.com, the country's fastest growing, nonprofit,

nonpartisan, state-focused news and information site. We deliver essential information with a taxpayer sensibility through reporting that's easy to understand and easy to share with your friends and family. We know that you need information that allows you to understand what the governor and your local legislators are doing. Get the news that you need to know at thecentersquare.com. That's thecenter square.com, thecenter square.com. And welcome back to American Focus, powered by the Center Square.

I'm Dan McCaleb. Joining me once again is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, welcome back. Thanks, Dan. That Center Square sounds like a pretty cool place. We should check it out. You can do that easily if you have a smartphone, a desktop computer, a laptop computer. Just log on to D.Centersquare.com.

Do you know anyone who doesn't have any one of those things nowadays? I can't think of a single person who doesn't have an electronic. I will say my mom, she has a cell phone, but she does not have a smart cell phone. She up until recently, she didn't have wireless service at her house. So, yes, I do know someone like that. So the only person in America who's not a reader of the Center Square is your mother. Got it. That is a sad state of affairs, isn't that?

Well, obviously the big story out of Washington this week was Afghanistan. And we tend, though, and what's the uprising that's going on there with Taliban taking control of Afghanistan cities. We tend to focus here on American focus, though, on domestic issues that affect taxpayers back home. So why don't we start, Casey, with the inflation costs? Because I know a lot of Americans are concerned about rising prices, excuse me, at the grocery store, at the gas station and whatnot. Let's start with the supplemental nutritional food program. What's going on there? Right.

So, you know, SNAP, food stamps, however you want to refer to it, is getting the, really a historic change. So the Biden administration announced this week that food stamps or SNAP will get really the largest increase in the program's history. So if any of our listeners receive those benefits, you are about to start receiving, I believe it's a 27% increase in benefits. So the obvious question is, wow, why is it happening? That's a big increase. Are there more people on the program? What's going on? But the reason it's going up is something we've been talking about a lot on our website and our reporting and on this podcast, and that is inflation. Inflation, food prices are on the rise. It just costs more to feed, house, clothes, and drive around a family of four.

than it has in a long time, really, in decades, actually, as the prices rise. So, you know, we've covered in June of this year, we saw the largest, almost a 1% cost, goods price increase, which was the largest since the 2008 financial crisis. Now, 1% sounds small, but you think about if goods increased 1% every month. Every month, right? Yeah, well, there's no, there's no investment that can really outpace that. So you'd actually, money in your savings account would be just tremendously losing value. Even your 401k would be losing value because the inflation would rise faster than the value of your investments.

So that one month, I think was a real red flag, but basically the U.S. Department of Agriculture does this report called the Thrifty Food Plan. So it's a big report. It's very long as government reports tend to be. But one of the main things in it, is they evaluate based on food prices, how much it costs to healthily feed a family of four. And they found that because of inflation, it's risen more than ever, and now people need to raise. So this isn't a criticism of the program. There's certainly plenty of lower-income Americans that need help, particularly families and they need to feed their kids. But this is indicative.

this is a monthly benefit. It's a payout to Americans who qualify. And the increase has to do with the amount of those monthly benefits that Americans will get. And it's tied directly to inflation, right? The consumer costs. Right, right. And I'll point out, as you alluded, this is not a partisan thing. This is not even, you know, Republicans attacking through Samson, Democrats going out of their way to give a race.

There's just things that have been put in place. to keep pace with inflation. And so this is kind of like a bureaucratic decision based on previous law. There's not really anything partisan going on here. Just to give you an idea, so the benefits are going to increase on average by $36 and 24 cents a person or $1,0.19 a day. And that will begin in October of this year, October 1st. And so, you know, family of $4, $36, obviously, I didn't, you know, I'm just a journalist, so I can't do math. but that's over $130, $140 in that realm.

So it's obviously going to make the program more expensive. As a general rule, the polling suggests Americans are not too hard on food stamps. They understand they want people to eat. And I think the bigger implication here is that inflation is very real. It's having real world implications, not just on the government spending, but also on just what people have to pay. So, taxpayers support this program. Right.

With taxpayers support it and also taxpayers go to the grocery store. And so this is federal recognition that it's more expensive to live. And so you can imagine the family who makes just a little bit more and who doesn't qualify for food stamps. But we have, you know, government report proof that that family is having to pay more and more money just to meet their necessities. And it's not like their wages are likely going up to meet that. because inflation is outpacing the wage growth. And so there's different angles on it. But I mean, it's obviously, you know, the families that are getting the benefit

are going to be happy about this. But overall, it's a, it's not a good sign for the trend. And that's why we're keeping an eye on it. Well, let's move on to the second indicator that we talked, that I talked about up front regarding inflation. And that's Social Security, Social Security's program that was created. during your working adult lives, Americans, the federal government takes money, set aside, puts it in a social security account. And when you retire, and there are certain age limits when you can qualify for social security benefits.

But when you retire, you get a portion of that money back on a monthly basis. And the cost of living adjustment on that is also expected to see a significant rise. Right. And I do want to stress this is not official yet. but experts, you know, the Senior Citizens League is who we referenced in the reporting here, but they've predicted that the annual cost of living adjustment, which is what it sounds like, you know, the amount of money that experts predict senior citizens need to, you know, meet their needs is going to increase the highest since 1983. Now, obviously, I mean, some hard listeners may remember that coming out of the 70s,

we had really a problem with inflation, a big problem. And so the fear is that we're getting back to those levels. But, you know, what, this is just really another indicator like the other one. And the Biden administration has tried to say that this is temporary. It's not that big a deal. Like, it's going to go away. Don't worry about it. The pushback to that would be, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire. And every week reporting on more and more smoke. And so if government programs are increasing, if nonpartisan bureaucrats are releasing reports saying that we're having to give historic increases to food stamps to give the biggest increases to senior citizens in almost 30 years. It kind of, it goes against that argument that this is just a blip and is not consequential, which a lot of people in the White House are trying to say. Right. Of course, President Biden is in his first term, and it's been this year, when inflation has seen month over month, over months, significant increases more significant than the recent years in the past.

So it's understandable from a political standpoint why he and his administration would try to downplay it. But these are two government-run programs run by the federal government that President Biden oversees now. So these are pretty solid indicators that inflation is not good and that Americans are going to be are currently paying and probably going to be paying significantly more. You mentioned the grocery stores, gas stations, things like that. Yeah, and there have been, there was a slight increase in inflation towards the end of the Trump administration.

But it really has, it's interesting, it really has taken off since Biden took office. I believe, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that. energy prices have really skyrocketed. And that has contributed. And, you know, Biden has put a moratorium on new oil and gas drilling. And so I do think actually that some of the price increases aren't entirely inflation and some of Biden's policies that are making certain parts of American life more expensive. Well, certainly his spending programs that you've written about at the CenterSquare.com as well,

the infrastructure bill, the supplemental budget, the $3 trillion. The COVID Relief Act, the different stimuluses that people have gotten. Obviously, there's pros and cons to those plans, but at a certain point, if you keep sending out the money by the trillions, then it's going to lead to inflation. It's unavoidable. And we've seen a lot of that this year, especially, you know, the last couple years, but especially this year. And so we're seeing the implications of it. Well, let's move on to our next headline. Casey, you referenced just a minute ago there the ban on new leases in the oil and gas industry up from federal lands.

In June, a federal judge struck down that ban on new leases. But some critics have said the Biden administration has been slow to respond to that and offer up new leases for drilling on federal land. and now we learn that the Biden administration is going to appeal that decision and continue to fight. What can you tell us about this story? Right. Well, like you said, this was a day one decision for the Biden administration. They said federal lands, no new oil and gas leases. This was about as far away from the Trump administration as you could get.

Trump had been very aggressively pro-drilling and really made the way. And that combined with new advances or implementation of fracking really went a long way to make the U.S. basically energy independent, right? And now, you know, Biden has made the same, this order, or more than a dozen states sued to stop it. And like you said, in June, the federal judge ruled against the Biden administration, but you may not know this, but it's, bureaucracies can move pretty slow and be pretty epically inefficient if they really want to be. And I think that's what was happening with giving out these new leases. The Biden, administration said, sure, yeah, you won the case, but they can really drag their feet and drag

these things out. It sounds like that's what they were doing. Right. Particularly when they disagree with the decision or the opposite end of the decision like the Biden administration was here. Yeah, and there's a lot of things that bureaucrats can do to slow walk different policies. I mean, we saw it with Trump's building of the wall and if the institutions are against it, they can do a lot to slow things down. Of course, the Biden administration's saying oil and gas emissions affect the climate, negatively impact the climate, and that's their reason for doing it. But there are also negative impacts of that. Americans, families, businesses, pretty much everybody relies on oil and gas for energy.

A number of states, a number of energy producing states have filed suit against the Biden administration to over. return this lease ban. Where are we at with all that? Yeah, well, it's in process. We haven't had any big developments. The Biden administration is going to appeal the ruling, the June ruling, and they are going, they have said that they're going to begin issuing these new leases. So we'll see. The interesting thing in this is if you can make the U.S. stop producing as much oil, but that doesn't really do anything to very much to slow consumption. Demand is still there, right? Right. And so Americans are going to keep driving their cars. They're just going to be doing

it with Middle East oil, opposed to oil from America. And so that even plays into the Afghanistan. I suspect and would even predict that oil, you know, gas prices are going to continue to rise because any Middle East stability causes gas prices to rise when the U.S. is more reliant on Middle Eastern oil, which we are becoming increasingly so because of this moratorium. But it also has a very strong local economic impact. So the state of Wyoming commissioned a report to study and evaluate what the impact of Biden's moratorium would be. And these are rough, you know, round numbers, but they found that it would cost 350,000 jobs and $670 billion in GDP in several States, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Montana, North Dakota, California, and Alaska.

So, 350,000 jobs, almost $700 billion by the year 2040. And overall, I would be, you know, $640 billion in the nation's GDP at the same year. So big economic, $350,000 in one industry is it's hard to, yeah, it's hard to say overstate how significant. if you know, it's, there may be part of you that wants to say, okay, you split that out over every state evenly and it kind of gets watered down, but that's not really how it works. There's whole regions of the country, you know, whole counties and groups of clusters of counties that the entire local economies are built on oil and gas. You know, I grew up in an area in East Texas that the working in the oil field was a very big part of the economy. A lot of guys that I knew worked in

oil field. And so if all those guys lost their jobs, which they would, you know, under this thing, it would have a ripple effect throughout the entire economy because these are good paying jobs. That's the thing. President Biden says he wants to replace these jobs that will be lost in the oil and gas industry with a new green energy jobs. But right now, if you do a, you know, a comparison, the average salary that workers are earning in the oil and gas industry. gas industry compared to the green energy industry. It's significantly more than the oil and gas industry. And most people, most people who study this issue say that there's no way that you'd be able to replace one for one old energy jobs with new energy jobs, that there will be fewer

new energy jobs than old energy jobs. So, I mean, it's a significant gamble on the economy and and on Americans who rely on the oil and gas industry to make a limit. Right. And the federal government is notoriously bad at following through on these promises of jobs. I mean, infamously, Obama kind of laughed off that his shovel-ready jobs weren't quite shovel-ready when he, you know, tried to create so many jobs. So, you know, axing hundreds of thousands of oil and gas shops with the promise that one day, don't worry, you'll get to build solar panels doesn't really, you know, mean a lot.

to the guy who's got to feed his family this year. And oh, by the way, the solar panel is going to actually be built in Arizona, not where you live in Texas. So you can either move or, you know, go work at Home Depot or not work anywhere at all. You know, and that's, you know, what's going to end up happening. I think what a lot of other, you know, people on more on the other side of this issue of or criticizing what Biden's doing are saying is, how about we get rid of the oil and gas jobs?

when the new energy jobs are already here. There you go. Let's focus on, let's create the solar panel factories that are ready to go and then transition people away instead of killing the jobs first with the promise of a future new job that may or may not materialize. Very good point. Well, we have time to talk about one more story, Casey, and it wouldn't be a news program in 2021 if we didn't talk about COVID-19, I suppose.

The Biden administration announced today that most Americans will be eligible to get a third shot, what's being called a booster shot on top of the COVID-19 vaccine. Tell us more about this. Yeah, so if you have been vaccinated, this is big news for you. And what this is mean, this is really a almost a federal change in position by the leading health experts. They're saying you should get a booster shot. There was a time when it was unclear that's going to be recommended or available. They're saying, yes, get one.

And yes, it will be widely available. You're supposed to get the booster shot eight months after your initial shot. So I think for the majority of people, they're not really at that any month point yet. You might be talking about health care workers, the people who are on the front line, front lines of the COVID-19 or the COVID-19 fight at the beginning. They're the ones that are going to be first eligible. That's right. It's going to be the people who are the first ones to get it.

And right, like you said, health care workers. Now, one thing to point out is it's going to be the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is not in this. The official said that Johnson and Johnson, if you receive that vaccine, you will likely need a booster. But this week's recommendation only applies to those who have the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. So it's likely that Johnson and Johnson recipients will end up needing the booster. but there's just it's just not it's not ready yet they haven't got to that point yet so that is important to note and like the the first doses if you received the first dose and or the second dose I guess not or if you didn't receive the first dose you didn't get your second dose right

but anyway my point is like those first initial doses the booster shot will be of no cost to the the federal government will pay for it. Of course, taxpayers will be paying for it. But if you go in to receive a booster shot, you will not be billed for that. Yes. So I think people have, this has been a little more controversial, you might think, because a lot of people are saying, okay, so does the vaccine work or not? Are we, and also this kind of, so it kind of a roads vaccine confidence. Some of the things that the federal government has said or done have actually been criticized by vaccine recipients because, you know, there's this holdout group of people in the country who have been very reluctant to get the vaccine. And so things like, oh, saying, changes the stance to say, even if you receive the vaccine, you still have to wear a mask.

It wrote something called vaccine confidence where people say, well, if the vaccine works, why do I have to wear a mask? If the vaccine works, why do I have to get booster after booster? Are there going to be unending series of booster shots? And so I'd say to put that context around it because people may say, okay, booster shot so what. But there is kind of a broader discussion here around how to handle this and, you know, is this incentivized people from getting the vaccine. And it's possible, maybe even likely that this is going to become an annual or a semi-annual thing, like the flu shot is, it's optional. Of course, like the COVID-19 vaccine is optional. Many people choose to go back

every year and get the flu shot in the fall or the winter. We don't know yet. We are 18 months into this pandemic, but we're still learning things about it. COVID-19 vaccine, if you choose to get it, it's an individual choice. It might be something Americans who do choose to receive it get for years to come. Yeah, and it's interesting with the mandates, too. There have been different mandates that various governments have been in place. New York City has been pretty strict. They said you have to have your vaccine, you know, perfectly vaccinated.

So is it going to be the case that in six months you have to have your proof of booster shot? And are there any people who got the vaccine, but really don't think the booster is necessary? There's so much kind of unstudy here. You know, we know a certain level about how safe the vaccine is, but probably even less by how safe the booster is. And so it's just layers of complexity, especially when you get these mandates in place that are going to be really interesting to follow. And Casey, you and I could go on and on about the various mandates, mask mandates and vaccine mandates and all that. But we've run out of time this week.

As usual, thank you for joining me. This has been America in Focus for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McAulip. We'll talk to you next week.