More than 500,000 New Mexicans, who have been receiving emergency benefits from the COVID-19 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), will see their benefits reverting back to regular pre-pandemic benefits, the New Mexico Human Services Department (NMHSD) announced recently.
During the pandemic, the federal government provided SNAP benefits to low-income residents across the country to help individuals and families buy groceries. According to the HSD, a family of three that received $740 in SNAP benefits each month will return to an average of $335 per month. A one-person household with no income was receiving $376 each month under the emergency benefit allotment and will now get $281 per month. All SNAP customers have been notified by mail of the changes to their benefits.
“It’ll impact a lot of people around here, especially in Central Albuquerque,” UNM student Jacob Villalobos told KRQE. “There’s a lot of low-income housing around here, low-income people including myself. With that reduction, I’m sure a lot of people are going to be struggling to try and get and afford food for themselves.”
The NMHSD said one advantage to going back to regular payments is residents won’t lose any unused money. “Any balance that is there will not go away or be depleted from that card for about a year," Karmela D. Martinez, Director of the Income Support Division for the Human Services Department told KRQE. "So people can reserve some of that balance to kind of help them maybe purchase larger quantity items to store in the freezer."
The adjustment still figures to be difficult for some residents, especially with inflation. “With COVID we saw that they had the resources to help us, so I think it’s kind of unfair that they’re going back on that now just to save them money when they can give it out to people who actually need it,” a woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, said.
The NMHSD plans to continue partnering with local food banks to help low-income families have access to food. “Now more than ever, we encourage the public to support food banks, nonprofits, faith-based partners, and others who have been serving the community,” Interim Acting Secretary for NMHSD Kari Armijo said in a release.