Opinion: SNAP judgment: We aren’t doing enough to help food-insecure Pennsylvanians

Taking the challenge to live on the average $6/day food benefits program underscores the struggle faced by millions of Americans to feed themselves and their loved ones.

By Stuart I.R. Haniff and Emily Kinkead

April 1, 2025 02:01 PM ET

Could you feed yourself with just $6 per day? For five days, we tried.

Food insecurity is worse now than it was during the pandemic; there isn’t a single community that isn’t touched by it. Nearly 13% of our nation’s population, or just over 42 million people, rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to afford the foodstuffs essential to health and well-being. Pennsylvania has the eighth-most SNAP participants in the nation, with more than 15% of our population receiving SNAP benefits. Yet the average benefit for a SNAP recipient is just $6 per day.

This past week, we had the humbling experience of participating in the Food Research & Action Center’s SNAP Challenge 2025 – attempting to keep ourselves fed on that meager sum. Starting Monday, March 17 and ending Friday, March 21, we each had a grand total of $30 to spend to meet our food needs. To paraphrase the Don Henley song, “Heart of the Matter”: All the things we thought we’d figured out, we had to learn again.

Read this entire City & State Pennsylvania piece HERE.