For now I ask no more Than the justice of eating.
- Pablo Neruda
In New Mexico, high rates of food insecurity are not an issue. They are a moral crisis. Nearly 18% of all households in the state experience some form of food insecurity - perhaps worried that food would run out, that they could not afford a balanced meal, or that they could not afford any meal whatsoever - while 1 in 4 of New Mexico’s children are food insecure.[1] These metrics are some of the highest in the nation, and as New Mexican families lose their financial support due to coronavirus-related unemployment, these rates are sure to increase. Addressing the food insecurity crisis must be a priority for New Mexico.
Food insecurity is closely-linked to poor health outcomes in adults and children, and New Mexicans are no exception. High rates of nutrition-related illnesses - diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity - contribute to more than $360m in annual, and largely preventable, healthcare costs for New Mexicans.[2] Since less than 30% of food-insecure families are on Medicare/Medicaid, these healthcare costs create a financial burden on households that are already having trouble making ends meet. By addressing food insecurity, this healthcare burden can be lessened for everyone.
Researchers present SNAP participation rates as the silver bullet.[3] By increasing the SNAP participation rate, a greater share of eligible low-income (and likely food-insecure) households could get the assistance they need to become food secure. This provides for healthier households and lowers the rates - and subsequent healthcare costs - of nutrition-related illnesses. However, New Mexico already has one of the highest SNAP participation rates in the country, where 95%+ of the eligible population is enrolled.[4] So, why are food insecurity rates still so high? If increasing SNAP participation is the solution to food insecurity, why hasn’t that led to a reduction in rates for New Mexico?
The inability of SNAP participation to reduce New Mexican food insecurity may be the result of several factors. Benefits that cannot adequately provide for a healthy diet, SNAP barriers to those just beyond the eligibility requirements (yet still food-insecure), and the reality of nutritious food access in a vast and largely rural state ultimately limit the effectiveness of SNAP participation on New Mexico’s food insecurity rates. Without addressing these specific causes, food insecurity rates will continue to result in a food-insecure and unhealthy New Mexico.
Policy Options
Policy options that could reduce New Mexico’s high rates of food insecurity, and that are particularly applicable and worth discussing, are:
Realigning SNAP benefits to the Low-Cost Food Plan
Increasing the SNAP eligibility threshold to 200% of the Federal Poverty Level
Expanding rural mobile grocer initiatives
Realigning SNAP benefits to the Low-Cost Food Plan
Of the 4 food plan tiers put forth by the USDA - Thrifty, Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost, and High-Cost - SNAP is the only federally funded program based on the lowest-tier Thrifty Food Plan. This Plan strives to balance minimal grocery costs with an adequately healthy diet. However, there are numerous issues with basing SNAP benefits on the TFP.
Setting aside that SNAP benefits do not technically cover the costs needed for a family of four to follow the Thrifty Food Plan - maximum SNAP benefits are $646/mo yet following the TFP costs $653/mo - the underlying calculations for the TFP are increasingly called into question.[5, 6, 7] Despite adjustments, the TFP still puts a heavy emphasis on food preparation and the time needed to prepare the listed groceries. For a modern, two-income household that does not work a “9-5 workday", this emphasis is inherently problematic. For those that can follow the TFP to the letter, they are still subjected to nutritional outcomes that leave much to be desired; the TFP does not provide adequate levels of potassium, iron, or vitamin C. Realigning SNAP benefits to the Low-Cost Food Plan would help families follow a healthy diet, reducing the healthcare costs of food insecurity.
For the same family, realigning SNAP benefits to the Low-Cost Food Plan would allow for a maximum monthly benefit of $727. However, there is no such thing as a free lunch - any increase in SNAP benefits would result in additional costs. Ignoring any healthcare savings, increasing SNAP benefits could cost up to an additional $112m each year. And that is just for New Mexico. As a federally funded program, New Mexico cannot unilaterally change the underlying benefit formula. Congress would need to pass legislation restructuring SNAP benefits nationwide, which would balloon increased costs well past $112m. Interestingly, SNAP benefit increases were floated during the recent COVID-19 stimulus discussion, as a means to provide greater support for those currently (or about to be) on SNAP.[8] However, this did not get included. Even if it had, it would likely be structured like the SNAP benefit increases of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - which were temporary. New Mexico's food insecure households need a lasting solution.
Increasing the SNAP Eligibility Threshold to 200% of the Federal Poverty Level
By increasing New Mexico’s SNAP eligibility threshold, the state could provide SNAP access to households that experience high rates of food insecurity, but that are currently barred from receiving benefits - namely, to those with incomes between 165 and 200% of the Federal Poverty Level. For a family of 4, the current eligibility cutoff amounts to a household income of $3,541/mo. A 200% threshold would increase this income cutoff to $4292/mo, providing SNAP benefits to roughly 62,000 additional households in the state. Although these households do not experience the same level of food insecurity as those currently served by NM SNAP, they do experience food insecurity at high rates.[9] Allowing these families to participate in SNAP would reduce their food insecurity.
Other Southwest states, like Arizona and Colorado, have raised their eligibility cutoffs to 185 and 200% respectively. So why hasn’t New Mexico? Unlike raising SNAP benefits, raising the eligibility threshold is something that New Mexico alone can decide to do. However, by federal law, any supporting funds must come from a state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families fund (TANF). An increase of 62,000 households could cost up to $74m.
However, as of 2018, New Mexico has $88.7m in “unobligated/unspent TANF” - enough to support an increased SNAP eligibility threshold for at least one year.[10] Once these unspent funds are exhausted, New Mexico could finance the additional costs through greater legislative appropriations to TANF - an admittedly tricky feat for a state whose main source of revenue just went up in COVID/OPEC smoke. However, without increasing state-level funding for TANF, New Mexico's political leadership would be forced into a politically tenuous position - diverting funds from established TANF assistance programs to expand SNAP.
Supporting and Expanding Rural Mobile Grocer Initiatives
Food insecurity in New Mexico is not always caused by a lack of access to SNAP, or inadequate benefits. Rural counties have some of the highest rates of food insecurity in the state, with infrastructure that does not lend itself to provide healthy, nutritious foods. The realities of simple geography result in “food deserts”, where distances to urban supermarkets lead to rural New Mexicans shopping at their local neighborhood markets/grocers - stores that cannot provide the level of nutrition-to-cost like urban supermarkets.[11] “Local” grocers may even stretch the very definition of the word, as rural residents sometimes have to choose between a 50-mile one-way trip to a grocery store, or stopping at the nearby convenience store to purchase more heavily-processed (and nutritionally-deficient) foods. This has resulted in incredibly high rates of food insecurity in rural New Mexico - household food insecurity rates are as high as 26% in McKinley County alone.[12] The New Mexican food insecurity crisis needs policies that specifically targets rural residents.
Expanding rural mobile grocer initiatives would lead to better nutrition and access. These programs reach far-flung and highly rural New Mexicans and provide households with fresh produce. The Santa Fe-based MoGro program could serve as an effective model for any statewide mobile grocer expansion. While these programs are inherently smaller, they have seen promising results. MoGro, for instance, provides grocery access to more than 1000 rural families, and has seen improved health outcomes in participants - in one well-designed study, 58% of participants saw a reduction in BMI.[13] Small-scale programs like these could be the key to reducing food insecurity in rural New Mexico.
The Solution
To combat the high rates of New Mexican food insecurity, the state needs to raise the SNAP eligibility threshold to 200% and expand rural mobile grocery programs. While raising SNAP benefits would indeed help those with the highest rates of food insecurity, such a policy requires national political willpower. This may be brought to the table during future COVID-19 legislation, but it is not something that New Mexico’s leadership can implement. Meanwhile, rates of food insecurity are resulting in long-lasting and damaging health outcomes for the state, and so solutions must be based on realistic possibilities - not on national politics. Raising the SNAP eligibility threshold to 200% of the Federal Poverty Level and expanding rural mobile grocers are solutions that New Mexico’s leadership can, and should, implement.
Of course, both of these policies would require some level of administrative investment, and enrolling 62,000 newly eligible households in SNAP could be costly - especially in a state budget that will see drastic cuts in revenue forecasts following the collapse of the global oil market. However, reductions in the related annual healthcare costs could exceed expansion costs, making not only financial sense, but leading to healthier lives for food-insecure New Mexicans.
Outside any financial rationale, there are categorical and moral imperatives in addressing this crisis. Food insecurity and poor nutrition lead to long-lasting and at-times debilitating illnesses for New Mexico's residents and their children. Societies have an obligation to fix these problems when it is within their power and reach to do so. Raising the SNAP eligibility threshold and expanding rural mobile grocers are feasible solutions to this crisis - and are solutions that the state has the power, reach, and obligation to implement.
References:
1. New Mexico's Indicator-Based Information System, "Health Indicator Report of Food Insecurity", https://ibis.health.state.nm.us/indicator/view/FoodInsec.Overall.State.html
2. Berkowitz et al, 2019. "State-Level and County-Level Estimates of Health Care Costs Associated with Food Insecurity", Center for Disease Control, https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2019/pdf/18_0549.pdf
3. Gundersen & Ziliak, 2015. "Food Insecurity And Health Outcomes", Health Affairs, https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/pdf/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0645
4. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "State-by-State SNAP Factsheets", https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/snap_factsheet_new_mexico.pdf
5. NM HSD, "Income Eligibility Guidelines for SNAP & Financial Assistance", https://www.hsd.state.nm.us/uploads/FileLinks/26463f122f47474487faee4922e09ce8/FPG_Cards_FY_2020_revised_12919_3.pdf
6. USDA, "Official USDA Food Plans: Cost of Food at Home at Four Levels, U.S. Average, February 2020", https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/media/file/CostofFoodMar2020.pdf
7. Waxman, Elaine, 2018, "How reevaluating the Thrifty Food Plan can improve SNAP", Urban Institute, https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/how-reevaluating-thrifty-food-plan-can-improve-snap
8. Werner et al., 8 April 2020, “Showdown heats up between Trump, Democrats over demand for more coronavirus small-business funds”, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/04/08/pelosi-schumer-coronavirus-economy-trump/
9. Wight et al, 2014, "Understanding the Link between Poverty and Food Insecurity among Children: Does the Definition of Poverty Matter?", Journal of Children and Poverty, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4096937/
10. Congressional Research Service, 2019, "The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant: Responses to Frequently Asked Questions", https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32760.pdf
11. Dean & Sharkey, 2011, "Rural and Urban Differences in the Associations between Characteristics of the Community Food Environment and Fruit and Vegetable Intake", Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3164744/
12. New Mexico's Indicator-Based Information System, "Health Indicator Report of Food Insecurity", https://ibis.health.state.nm.us/indicator/view/FoodInsec.Overall.Cnty.html
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