It's a cut that could affect millions of families in Florida.
President Donald Trump is proposing funding cuts for the food assistance program known as SNAP. Many of you know it as food stamps.
Close to $200 billion would be gutted from the program over the next decade.
The Trump administration claims it will achieve this goal by adding new work requirements.
Shannon Valladolid spoke with local food pantries like Feeding Tampa Bay who say many people that come to them for help are hardworking families.
Thomas Mantz, executive director with Feeding Tampa Bay. says “90 percent of the food we provide go to homes where people rent or own them, so to assume that folks are simply trying to get by is the wrong assumption."
We spoke with Latasha Donaldson, local mom of three on SNAP, who is working full-time while going to school and still struggles to make ends meet.
Donaldson’s story is nothing new. You’ve probably heard it many times.
“It's kind of hard to maintain everything with just the little bit of income that I have. The food stamps help because they help supplement what I'm not getting from my employer,” says Donaldson.
Without SNAP, Donaldson said she would really struggle to put food on the table. By going to school, she hopes to one day be able to support her family without government assistance.
“My goal is to eventually get off SNAP,” she says.
The cut wouldn’t just affect millions of families, but also the organizations helping our neighbors in need.
Remember many food pantries rely just on donations and volunteers.
“It will drive more folks into our network and we will have to respond to that. The community will have to respond to that,” says Mantz. “Lost in all of this is that it affects the healthcare of children and seniors. If a child doesn’t have access to food on a regular basis they can't learn in school. If a senior doesn’t have access to food, they will end up in a doctor’s office.”
SNAP keeps more than 8 million people out of poverty – including nearly 4 million children.
Between 2009 and 2012, SNAP kept 513,000 people out of poverty in Florida, including 230,000 children.
SNAP also pumped about $5.2 billion into Florida’s economy in 2016.
Many people who protect our community and educate our youth are in need or help from SNAP or food pantries.
“Somewhere around 19 percent of the food that we distribute goes to retired or active military. The bulk of that is retired military. We also see schoolteachers and we see firemen,” says Mantz.
For now, the proposed budget cut under the Trump Administration is not set in stone, but people like Latasha are already nervous about the possibility.
“I work a lot and I also go to school. So that's not lazy at all,” says Donaldson.
It's not just SNAP, other programs like Medicaid and temporary assistance for needy families would see cuts over the next 10 years.
The administration wants to spend more money on defense, the VA and homeland security.
