[theme music]

Amina Srna: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm producer Amina Srna filling in for Brian today. Welcome back, everyone. Now, we've got a prime example of how national politics can be felt deeply at the local level. While Congress won't be releasing their budget until September, New York City officials and anti-hunger groups are already anticipating major cuts to the federal food stamps program. This comes as New Yorkers rely on food assistance programs more than ever before. A whopping 1.8 million people, 500,000 of which are children.

WNYC and Gothamist's homelessness and poverty reporter, Karen Yi, hit the streets to talk to New Yorkers about this issue. She joins us now with her findings. Hi, Karen, welcome back to The Brian Lehrer Show.

Karen Yi: Hey, it's good to be here.

Amina Srna: Let's start in Washington where this issue stems from. Why are experts tackling hunger in New York City expecting cuts to the federal food assistance programs in the next budget?

Karen Yi: Some of the budget proposals that have been put forth essentially would dictate to the House Agriculture Committee to cut $230 billion from the programs they oversee, which the majority of which is SNAP. There's no way they can make these cuts without severely cutting back SNAP. The Senate put forth a budget resolution that puts those cuts at one billion, and so we're still waiting to see what the final number will look like. The problem here is just the level of cuts that the government wants to make to SNAP is just going to have a huge effect on New Yorkers.

They've put forward a series, a sort of a menu of options as to how they would make these cuts. One of those is rolling back an update to SNAP benefits. In 2021, the government decided to actually increase how much people were getting for SNAP to reflect modern diets. Right now we eat more fruits and vegetables. Food costs have increased. So, it was a dramatic increase that hadn't happened for many, many years, and so one of the proposals would be to scale that back. If that would happen, that would mean, on average, people get across the country $6 a day on SNAP. That could go back to $4.80. Right?

We don't really know what's going to happen, but just given the proposals and what we're hearing out of Washington, D.C., most people are saying there's no way this emerges unscathed. It's just a matter of how badly SNAP will be damaged. Hopefully, it'll remain as is, because so many people across the country, not just in New York, depend on this program.

Amina Srna: Do we know the rationale about why they're cutting it back?

Karen Yi: I think this is just part of the GOP trying to go forth and enact Trump's agenda, which is doing budget cuts and enacting tax cuts. They're trying to roll back spending and trying to also roll back waste, fraud, and abuse. One of the things that they're targeting is they're asking people to make these cuts, and so SNAP just happens to be on the table as well. We've seen that happen to other programs as well.

Amina Srna: Listeners, the phones are open to you. Do you rely on government assistance to fill your fridge? Maybe you get extra goods at your local food pantry that would otherwise be unaffordable. Do you volunteer at a food pantry or work in a related field? How are you anticipating cuts to federal food assistance programs? What impact would those cuts have on your daily life? We can also take your questions for our guest, Karen Yi, WNYC and Gothamist's homelessness and poverty reporter. Call or text us now at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.

Karen, I know you mentioned the numbers just now, but they went by a little bit fast for me. Can you just explain again how much money they're expecting to lose nationally and then here in New York City.

Karen Yi: Right. What we're looking at nationally is it sort of depends. I think those numbers maybe, let's take it with a grain of salt, right? The House Agricultural Committee has been tasked and instructed to cut 230 billion over the next 10 years. The Senate Agricultural Committee has been instructed to cut $1 billion. There's going to have to be some sort of reconciliation once the budget is finalized. At the New York City level, on average, a conservative estimate that city officials have told me is that they would lose $870 million a year in SNAP benefits.

That is going to have a huge impact, because you have 1.8 million New Yorkers who rely on SNAP. It's a record number. More and more people are signing up for this program. What that could mean, that's going to essentially take money out of people's pockets, right? Because like I mentioned earlier, on average, across the country, people get $6 a day. Think about buying three meals for $6 a day. That could be rolled back by-- you could lose a dollar plus. That can make an impact over time.

Amina Srna: Take us back a step. How does SNAP, that's the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, say that five times fast. How does SNAP function?

Karen Yi: Okay, SNAP kind of works like a debit card. First of all, families are eligible based on their income, if they have an older family member in the home, or have a disability. There's various ways for you to qualify, and if you also have lost your job or don't make enough. What it is, is in the name, right? It's supplemental. It's not supposed to be your only form of buying food, but for many families it is. It works through an EBT card, right? You get your benefits monthly. You could use it at the grocery store, you could use it at bodegas, you could use it at farmers' markets.

The other part of SNAP is that it really contributes to the local economy. This is how people, 1.8 million New Yorkers buy their food. This is how they shop. When you're in the grocery store, it looks just like a debit card. That allotment is given based on your income. So you get more if you maybe don't have a job, or earn a little bit less. You get less if you earn more.

Amina Srna: That's why we, in the media, don't use the term food stamps anymore. Right? They were literally like pieces of paper before and now it's just a regular card, right?

Karen Yi: Right. I mean, this was a program that was started in, during the Great Depression. So it's been around for a long time. Yes, now it is much more modernized. When you walk by and you say-- you walk by a store or a bodega and it says EBT cards accepted, that's what we're talking about.

Amina Srna: That's what it means. All right, great. Is it just SNAP that's in danger or are other food assistance programs in jeopardy as well?

Karen Yi: Yes, I mean, I think that's a really good point. I think SNAP, SNAP is on the chopping block, but we're also looking at cuts to school meals. That would have a significant impact. So, what people who are in the anti-poverty and emergency food space are saying is, even if SNAP cuts-- maybe SNAP isn't cut, or maybe SNAP isn't cut as significantly as we fear. When you cut these other safety net programs, that's going to increase hunger. SNAP needs to be looked at also in the broader context of other cuts that are happening that are going to impact New Yorkers.

This is happening at a moment in the city where we're in an affordability crisis. Robin Hood have put out its annual Poverty Tracker a few weeks ago, that found 25% of New Yorkers are living in poverty. That's one in four New Yorkers, are living in poverty. When you're on the subway, you're riding the subway with people who are on SNAP, who are living in poverty. That's something to really think about when you try to consider and try to imagine what-- the sort of the trickle effects on this in the city.

Amina Srna: Let's take a call. Let's go to Mark in Nyack. Hi, Mark, you're on WNYC.

Mark: Yes. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate Ms. Yi's granularity and her very solid reporting on this issue, but I want to go meta and question the way the media narrative is being framed, even if only unconsciously. Ms. Yi mentioned the Trump agenda, and she mentioned cuts to SNAP and the desire to cut taxes, but she didn't explicitly say that the taxes being cut are for the 1%. Gutting SNAP is a way to facilitate the greatest upward redistribution of wealth in our time. As well, the use of the now decades old phrase, waste, fraud, and abuse is totally tendentious and it plays into the Trump narrative.

That whole idea that there's rampant waste, fraud, abuse has been abundantly and repeatedly disproven. Let's not give aid and comfort to the Trump agenda with a false objectivity on the media part. Let's call a spade a spade. This is to facilitate Trump's cuts for people like Elon Musk, period.

Amina Srna: Thank you, Mark, for that meta analysis, as you called it. Karen, did you want to respond?

Karen Yi: Yes. Mark, I mean, you're absolutely right. This is to extend a tax cut for the wealthy, and I think everyone in the city, and that it works in-- the anti-poverty space is very clear-eyed about that. This is literally taking money from the pockets of working class families and children to extend tax cuts for the wealthy. I think that is very clear. Thank you for adding that piece of context.

Amina Srna: Here's a text. "I don't think people realize how low income you have to be to qualify for SNAP. My daughter received benefits years back and even when she was working part-time at a minimum wage job, she didn't qualify." So I'm wondering if any listeners have been in that same boat. Please call and share your stories. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Karen, you headed out to food banks and grocery stores in the city to speak with New Yorkers who rely on assistance. Who in our city relies on SNAP to meet their needs? Are recipients usually employed like our texter mentioned her daughter was?

Karen Yi: Yes. I think that I was trying to sort of put a face on who are SNAP recipients in the city, because I think that's something that's really important to understand. Some of the numbers that I was able to get from the city is that about 20% of New Yorkers who are on SNAP are working households. So in many cases, I don't know what the income restrictions were when the texter's daughter was trying to sign up for SNAP, but in many cases people do work and do have jobs. Many times that's a full-time job, but they just don't make enough. That does qualify them for SNAP.

There's also other requirements, right? You could have a full-time job, make minimum wage or over minimum wage, but say you have dependent care expenses, right? Or you have somebody in your home who has a disability, that would qualify you. It's a little bit complicated, but there is, if you look online, charts that say if you're not working, you can earn up to this amount if you're a household of three or four. If you are working, you can earn up to this amount and be eligible. If you are working and you have a family member with a disability or dependent care costs, like a child to pay for childcare, you're also eligible.

There's a couple of steps. To go back to your question, I mean, I think I spoke to people who were retired, right? I mean, we have half a million older adult New Yorkers, 60 years old or older, who are receiving the benefit. For them, many of them are on fixed income. When you have food prices increasing, I mean, we've all talked about the price of eggs, right? How much that has skyrocketed. It means that your SNAP dollars, which are the same every month, they don't go as far.

When you go with your SNAP dollars to the grocery store, maybe you can't afford to buy eggs, because that is your budget for the week. Something that I heard that has also been sort of confirmed by multiple reports is that SNAP dollars usually evaporate within the first two visits to the grocery store. Usually, people go to the grocery store once a week. By the second visit, there's no more money. Again, it is supplemental, but a lot of families are patchworking.

They're patchworking in order to put enough food on the table, which means they're using SNAP dollars, they're relying on food pantries, and then they're using a little bit of their income to supplement. Because rent is so high, because childcare is so expensive for families in the city, they're essentially reallocating that money elsewhere. That's why it's important to look at the whole pie of all of the costs that are simultaneously increasing for families.

Amina Srna: I wanted to ask you another question. Is it possible that government officials in Albany or here at City Hall can maneuver a way to cover the funding shortfall if major cuts do arise come September?

Karen Yi: Yes. I asked this question, and the reality is that SNAP is such a huge part of the safety net that there really is no way to make up that shortfall. I think as people are hammering away at the city and the state budget, I mean, obviously, emergency food groups are pushing for more money. At the city, there's really one funding stream to help food pantries, and that's this program called Community Food Connection. It helps food pantries buy food. Advocates are pushing for that to be increased to 100 million, but that shies in the face of 870 million in cuts that we would see if SNAP were to be cut back from the federal government. Same thing at the state.

There's pushes to create a sort of a floor, a monthly minimum of $95 a month for SNAP recipients, which New Jersey actually did, I believe it was last year, and increase more funding to food pantries. Again, that's just not going to be enough. I spoke to the CEO of Hunger Free America, and he put it very clearly. He said the federal safety net is 17 times the amount that the city and state put forward, sort of across the board. There is really no replacement for the hand that the federal government has in helping New Yorkers eat.

Amina Srna: Now we've got a caller. Let's go to Gwen in Manhattan. Hi, Gwen, you're on WNYC.

Gwen Hi. This is the one time that I actually kind of felt reluctant about sharing. Okay, so I'm just going to give you my story. First of all, I want to say that my parents both lived through the Depression, and I am well aware that these programs are designed as insurance so people don't fall through the cracks, so you don't end up homeless. When I first arrived in New York many years ago, I was not able to find work for a long time. I went down and applied for welfare at the office in our district. I was told by the woman who took care of me that, "This program is not for people like you and me."

I can only suggest that she was referring to the color of my skin, which is white, and hers was, too. That was the only explanation I got, and I left. I have friends right now that live in Cape May, New Jersey, which is not a place. I live in New York, but I have friends that live there. It's a seasonal town. Often, people go on food stamps in the wintertime welfare, and they're Trumpers. They're out there and they're supporting Trump. I just want to know, is the noose getting tight enough yet? Are you feeling it yet? I also have three friends in retail, where I work, that are all in their late 50s, and they have been fired because of their age.

One of them worked at Ralph Lauren for 34 years and was fired after 34 years and has no pension, has no 401, and she's five minutes away from being homeless. She, by the way, is a devout Republican. Her entire life was a devout Republican. It's like watching one long nervous breakdown. I don't know what time people-- I just want to say one last thing about all of this. Is that I think people have got to stop thinking this as a Democrat and Republican issue. It's not anymore. It is, are you going to be in a fascist country or are you going to stay free? That's it. Because we need everyone to get on board with fighting fascism. That's the only meal that's on the plate right now, and I reject it.

Amina Srna: Gwen, thank you so much for calling and being so vulnerable. I think your story helps shed light to what a lot of people are experiencing. So, it's great to hear from you, and call us back, please. Karen, as you were listening to Gwen, what came up for you?

Karen Yi: Yes. I think you bring up a good point, Gwen. I think what is-- sort of what people need to understand about SNAP is, yes, I mean, whether you're Republican, Democrat, Independent, or don't really care about politics, all sorts of people are on this program and rely on it. Sometimes it's for just a few weeks or a few months because you lost your job. Sometimes it's a little bit longer, because you have a job, but it doesn't pay the bills. I mean, I spoke to a home health aide and she was on SNAP while she worked. She didn't make enough money.

I think one of the advocates put it to me this way. He said, there's this sort of commingling, in the public imagination, of homelessness and hunger. Homeless people are hungry, but also working class people and working people are also hungry. People on SNAP aren't necessarily-- they're also your neighbors. They're also your neighbors with kids. They're also working. I think that we have to understand how deep rooted this program is, and how many families really do rely on this program. At the same time, we can't forget that we had a pandemic a couple years ago that people are still recovering from.

People lost jobs, people can't work, people have to work differently. What happened during the pandemic is also really important to talk about, because right now the food pantries and the emergency food providers that I've been interviewing are saying hunger right now in the city is at an all-time high. Higher than during the pandemic. We all remember the visual of those lines snaking around the corner for food pantries, people pulling up in their nice cars. Right?

Amina Srna: Right.

Karen Yi: Who had lost their jobs, who needed food on the table. Advocates are saying the hunger is worse than those days. It is 50% higher than those days. Part of the reason we're seeing that is, during the pandemic, the government had sort of rolled out a lot of these programs to help people get by. One of those was to increase how much they were giving out in SNAP. The minimum was $95 a month. That actually lifted people out of poverty. I think there's-- I forget the number, but there was a statistic that said just increasing that helped people move out of poverty.

At the same time, we increase the amount to reflect diets, that I talked about earlier. This happened simultaneously, right? There was a flush of cash for people on SNAP, which helped people. Now, you saw that pandemic era aid roll back, and now we could see that number roll back even further. We see the direct impact. We see the direct impact of rolling that money back. Longer lines at pantries, more need at pantries. The safety net, the tattered safety net that exists in the city, which is more than exists in other states, right? Other states in the south, is already feeling so much pressure.

So, the concern, I think, is if you have more hunger in the city, people on SNAP who their SNAP dollars are not getting them as much as it used to, and maybe they're going to lose some money, what is that going to do for us? How much is that need and that demand going to grow?

Amina Srna: Karen, you were just saying, you were just making the note that people on SNAP are our neighbors, and I just wanted to acknowledge all the texts and calls coming in saying the same thing. A lot of our listeners have, at one time or another, relied on these benefits, or know somebody who has. Let's take another caller. Gregory in Harlem. Hi, you're on WNYC.

Gregory: Hi, good morning.

Amina Srna: Good morning.

Gregory: I'm Gregory. I just wanted to say that it's very interesting, because I've been living through this. I volunteer at the Food Bank For New York City here in Harlem. I'm very well aware and an advocate for food insecurity, because it is rampant. Personally, in 2017, during the first Trump administration, someone at the Social Security Administration keyed me in as deceased, and I have not received my Social Security ever since June of 2017. I started a little business to help sustain myself and to not be homeless, but I got to tell you, last year I applied for SNAP, and they-- I get $23 a month. Because I see people my age then who are retired who also get the same amount of money.

The SNAP is good, but $23 a month is not $6 a day. That is, it's very, very interesting. I understand how much people need, but if it weren't for the fact that I have a little bit of income on my own, that I build my own little small business, I mean, tiny business, the $23 a month, if that's all I ever got, and if it weren't for the food bank that I go to every day to eat lunch and sometimes dinner, and if it weren't for the community, I'd be a very, very depressed individual.

Amina Srna: Gregory, thank you so much for lending your voice to this story. We really appreciate it. Karen, another text coming in. "Many years ago, my husband left me shortly after I had lost my job. I didn't see myself as a 'public assistance case', but friends convinced me to sign up for SNAP. It was my entire food budget for the month. I started picking up part-time work that barely covered the rent. Without SNAP, I would have had to choose between food and homelessness.

I was only on SNAP for a year, but it was critical to allowing me to rebuild my life without losing housing and falling into much of a deeper hole." Let's go to another caller with a little bit of a bigger picture. How about Tom in Erie, Pennsylvania? Hi, Tom, you're on WNYC.

Tom: Hello. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. As I listened to the callers in the discussion, it only brings to mind that we're talking about the individual. As individuals, we all have a sense of dignity, and we ought to be able to enhance people's dignity by treating them with a decent subsidy so that they aren't dependent on food banks. If they are, not to the great degree that many people are. I think it's a different twist on the issue, but it's probably the most important issue.

We're not just talking about numbers here. We're talking about people that got to live their lives and continue to do what they do. If we don't support them, well, then we wonder why we're getting different outcomes, non-desirable outcomes.

Amina Srna: Karen, as you're thinking about what Tom is saying, just wondering about New Yorkers who aren't reliant on food assistance programs. I think you kind of brought this up earlier. How will they notice cuts in their lives, or what can they do to-- will this result in a visible change in our city? Excuse me.

Karen Yi: Yes. I think going back to Gregory's point, there's a lot of numbers, and I think we can get lost in that. The truth is, yes, families are already having to make difficult choices about, do I pay my increased rent or my increased bills or do I put some food on the table? Do I maybe not eat today so my children can eat? There's families that I spoke to that they're not buying any meat or dairy or eggs anymore. They're just relying on carbs and starches and to make it stretch and do freezer meals. That's not really healthy for people.

I did also want to mention a report that came out from No Kid Hungry that found that more New Yorkers are actually getting into debt. They are pulling money out of their 401(k), or putting groceries on their credit cards, because they can't afford the price of food. Yes, this is very much impacting people across the city. He mentioned that he gets $23 a month. That is true for many New Yorkers. The $6 a day that I mentioned is just really an average, and some people make more and some people make less than that. Yes, absolutely. I think the way-- I kept asking people this question. How can we imagine a city-- what are the impacts of this on the city?

Even the social services commissioner was like, "You're going to have a trickle effect. If people can't put enough food on their table, they're going to have to make maybe a difficult choice of whether they can pay rent." So you might see an increase in the census in homeless shelters. You might see an increase in-- I don't know. I think it's hard to see. Because SNAP is already not enough for people, what will it mean if it gets rolled back in any way? I think that's what people are really worried about.

Amina Srna: Karen, I was going to let you go, but we got one more caller we're going to try to sneak in here. Liz in Huntington, you're on WNYC. Hi, Liz.

Liz: Hi. Hi. I'm calling in because I currently volunteer for a national organization called Food Rescue US. We have a local chapter here called Western Suffolk County, and we pick up excess food from grocery stores and farmers' markets and farms and delis and restaurants and bakeries, et cetera. We pick up excess food and deliver it to local social service agencies and pantries here. In a world where almost 40% of food ends up as waste in landfills, I just wanted to make a call to action to restaurants and grocery stores, et cetera, to donate excess food that's headed for landfills.

We have volunteers, through an app-based system, that pick up that food and we deliver it to agencies. We're seeing, like you mentioned, the lines are longer and longer these days. There is so much food insecurity.

Amina Srna: Thank you so much for sharing, Liz. That's all the time we have for today. My guest was Karen Yi. WNYC and Gothamist homelessness reporter. Homelessness and poverty reporter. Excuse me. Thank you so much, Karen.

Karen Yi: Thank you.

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.