The Missouri Department of Social Services announced Monday that Pandemic SNAP benefits will be extended through December.
SNAP benefits, also known as Food Stamps, allow lower-income people to purchase food and food products as a supplement to their regular income. “SNAP” stands for “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program”. Pandemic SNAP benefits, or P-SNAPs, allow those enrolled to receive the maximum amount of benefits from SNAP. In a press release, the Department of Social Services said its request for P-SNAPs had been approved by the USDA, as they had been every month since March.
Melissa Wolf is the deputy director of the department’s Family Support Division. She said P-SNAPs have been extremely helpful for Missourians since the start of the pandemic.
“We are grateful that Pandemic SNAP has been allowed since March,” Wolf said. “It has increased benefits to households by approximately $50 each month, so that can be a huge help when putting groceries on the table for your family during this time.”
Applications and enrollments for SNAP have risen dramatically since the start of the pandemic. According to the Show Me Strong website, 347,363 families were enrolled in SNAP in October, an increase of nearly twenty-nine thousand from the same time last year. In addition, new applications spiked in April, where 22,773 new ones were filed, fifteen thousand more applications than in 2019. Wolf said it is impossible to guess how many people will file applications in December.
“Honestly, there’s no way to predict how many households will apply for SNAP in the coming month… That’s not something we can predict,” Wolf said.
Wolf also said Missouri is participating in the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot, which allows people enrolled in SNAP to pay for online shopping with their benefits. Missouri households must report any changes to their financial circumstances to the state’s Family Support Division.