As of today, April 1st, Iowans will no longer be receiving those extra benefits that came from COVID-19 pandemic funding. And for some families, says Iowa Public Radio, this means some individuals are losing as much as $230 a month.

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Each month during the COVID-19 pandemic the USDA increased  SNAP benefits by a minimum of $95 a month, said an article by WHO 13. However, this extra funding with contingent on Iowa keeping its COVID-19 disaster declaration.

Back in February, Governor Kim Reynolds decided to let Iowa’s COVID-19 disaster emergency declaration expire.

The USDA did approve a one-month transition period for Iowa to go from pandemic to non-pandemic levels. March was the last month SNAP households received the Maximum Allotment of SNAP benefits. Now that it's April, we are back to pre-pandemic funding.

The USDA estimates that more than 141,000 families and 287,000 individual Iowans use SNAP benefits to purchase their groceries.

More on SNAP resources can be found here.

The USDA released its Food Prices Outlook for 2022 a week ago which predicts food price increases to continue all through the year.

According to the report, food-at-home prices, which refers to grocery store or supermarket food purchases, are predicted to increase between 3.0 and 4.0 percent.

Just from January to February 2022, the food-at-home Consumer Price Index increased 1.4 percent. It was also 8.6 percent higher than in February 2021.

We can also expect to see increases in restaurants.

Within the last year, we have seen the food-away-from-home, or restaurant purchases, and Consumer Price Index increase by 6.8 percent.

 

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