Some of the indelible images during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Oregon and all across the country, are the lines at food pantries stretching for blocks. While those images capture reality at a moment in time, they ultimately fail to tell the most important story about hunger during that period: food insecurity in our country did not rise, despite the global pandemic and the ensuing economic chaos.

The reason why food insecurity did not rise during the pandemic also explains why it rebounded after the emergency ended. Robust federal policies helped ensure families could feed themselves during the pandemic, but the expiration of those policies worsened food insecurity. This recent history shows that hunger is a policy choice.

Today, one in seven Oregonians struggles to put food on the table. And even more alarming, congressional action threatens to make matters much worse.

Hunger did not increase during the pandemic, but rebounded following the end of COVID-era policies

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was incredibly difficult for families across the country. Stay-at-home orders, school closures, and other public health responses resulted in big spikes in unemployment, leaving families without the income to feed themselves. 

But over the next year, policymakers responded by expanding food assistance and other policies that put more cash into the hands of families. As a result, from 2020 to 2021, food insecurity across the country did not rise. By 2021, one in ten Americans struggled to put food on the table, the lowest level in two decades. This was a remarkable accomplishment given the massive economic shock triggered by the pandemic. 

What kept hunger at bay? Two policy responses stand out during this period. 

First, in January of 2021, Congress expanded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), in part by temporarily boosting monthly benefits. Subsequent research has shown that this expansion improved food security, mental health, and overall economic well-being for families who received it. 

Around the same time, Congress temporarily expanded the federal Child Tax Credit (CTC). It did so by making the credit more generous, making it fully available to families with little or no income, and paying it out in monthly installments. In effect, the expanded CTC served, at least for a brief period, as a guaranteed income for families. In Oregon, nearly 90 percent of families with low incomes reported using their monthly CTC payments to meet their basic needs, including food. 

But the expanded CTC expired at the end of 2021. Unsurprisingly, food insecurity increased between 2021 and 2022. By 2023 – the year with the most recent estimates – food insecurity across the country was nearing Great Recession levels. 

The existing safety net is not strong enough to fully prevent hunger

SNAP, the nation’s principal tool for preventing hunger, is not as strong as it should be. According to Feeding America – a nonprofit network of more than 200 food banks across the country – about 40 percent of food insecure Oregonians earned too much to qualify for SNAP in 2023, the year with the most recent data. 

Nearly 18 percent of Oregon children were food insecure in 2023. Stated differently, almost one in five children in Oregon lived in homes that struggled to put food on the table that year.

Food security in Oregon is not experienced evenly across race and ethnicity, a reflection of historic and present-day inequities that have left some communities in a more precarious economic situation. More than one in three (34 percent) Black Oregonians was food insecure in 2023. That was 162 percent higher than the rate for white Oregonians (13 percent). About one in four Latino households (24 percent) experienced food insecurity in 2023, nearly twice the rate of white households.

The congressional Republican budget bill threatens to increase hunger

In July, the Republican-controlled Congress enacted H.R. 1, a budget bill that makes the largest cuts in history to SNAP. The cuts to SNAP, as well as cuts to Medicaid, are how the Republican budget bill offsets some of the cost of trillions of dollars worth of tax cuts over the next decade, tax cuts that overwhelmingly favor the wealthy. According to one estimate, H.R. 1 “cuts SNAP by about 20 percent through 2034. About 4 million people, including about 1 million children, would lose all or a substantial amount of the food assistance they need to afford groceries.” 

The Republican budget bill cuts SNAP in several ways. First, it shifts the burden of funding the program, in part, onto states. States that are unable to pick up that tab will be required to remove people from the rolls, or opt out of SNAP altogether. The price tag for Oregon will be more than $500 million in our current budget period.

The Republican budget bill also pays for the tax cuts mainly going to the wealthy by reinstituting and expanding work requirements. In effect, work requirements create new layers of bureaucracy that people needing help feeding their families must wade through in order to maintain eligibility. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that SNAP will serve about 2.4 million fewer people in a typical month under this new scheme. 

The law goes further by reducing the food assistance families can receive by counting certain utility assistance as income against their SNAP benefits. It also restricts future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, the foundation for how SNAP benefits are calculated in the first place. Families will likely need to stretch their SNAP benefits further in the future, benefits which for many are already too meager to last the month. All told, the Oregon Department of Human Services estimates that Oregonians receiving SNAP will see their benefits reduced by $425 million in the current budget period.

Finally, the Republican budget bill eliminates eligibility for certain lawfully permanent residents. These include refugees, asylees, certain victims of domestic violence or sex trafficking, and more. Again, these are not policy changes made to improve the program in any way, but rather to throw people off of the SNAP program to help pay for lavish tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

Confronting hunger requires systemic policy responses. For every meal the Oregon Food Bank – the state’s largest network of food banks and pantries – provides, SNAP provides nine. So it is clear that the cuts to SNAP, the biggest in the program’s history, threaten to worsen hunger.

Oregon needs to step up in addressing hunger

In late October, the Trump administration told states to not expect their November allotments of SNAP benefits due to the ongoing federal government shutdown. While courts later ordered the administration to utilize reserve funds, and Oregon acted quickly to get those resources out to families, the moment showed just how vital SNAP is in preventing vast suffering across the nation. 

Now that the Republican budget bill has weakened SNAP with its deep cuts, the state will need to find the resources needed to keep hunger at bay. The Governor’s office estimates Oregon will need nearly $3 billion over the next three budget periods just to keep SNAP serving the same number of Oregonians as it does now. 

Where should Oregon look to find the resources? Given the windfall the rich and corporations received from the Republican budget bill, raising taxes on those groups would be a smart choice for Oregon lawmakers. Another option would be for Oregon to amend the kicker, the automatic tax rebate triggered when more revenue comes in that projected. The reform would dedicate a portion of the kicker – the portion that would otherwise go to the richest Oregonians – towards preventing hunger.

There is no way around it. The Republican budget bill enacted earlier this year will add fuel to the fire of already increasing hunger in Oregon. Hardworking Oregon families cannot wait for Congress to undo this harm. State lawmakers must act swiftly to raise the revenue needed to ensure Oregonians do not lose food assistance.