No, additional benefits for SNAP recipients will not be available in March.

The Supplemental Food Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, is a federal program that helps low-income people buy food. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government provided additional benefits to SNAP recipients.

Several viewers have written to VERIFY to ask if SNAP recipients will continue to receive “extra stamps” in March.

Will SNAP recipients continue to receive additional benefits in March?

No, SNAP recipients will not receive additional benefits in March.

The Supplemental Food Assistance Program (SNAP) is a federal program that provides low-income families with a debit card that they can use to purchase certain food items at stores. Although it is a federal program, SNAP is administered by the states.

The Families Coronavirus Response Act of 2020 primarily increased SNAP funding to allow states to provide “extra benefits” to families receiving SNAP benefits. This increased the monthly allowance families could spend using their SNAP cards.

While the federal government continued to provide additional benefits this year, 17 states have voluntarily decided to stop providing additional benefits to SNAP recipients until early 2023. SNAP recipients in these 17 states will see no change in their monthly benefits between February and March.

When Congress drafted its 2023 budget bill, it included a provision to end additional appropriations for all states in February 2023.

So, in states that still gave SNAP recipients this increased benefit, people will have less SNAP money to spend in March than they did in February.

That’s a total of 32 states plus Washington, DC, Guam and the US Virgin Islands, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). South Carolina ended its emergency payments a month early, meaning state SNAP recipients last received an increased benefit in January.

The USDA has a list of states that will be affected by the end of emergency appropriations at the end of February. You can find the list here under the heading “Confirmed extensions (until Feb 2023)”.

Each household in those 32 states will receive at least $95 less per month, with some households receiving hundreds of dollars per month cut, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. How much a household loses in SNAP benefits per month will depend on the size of the household; whether there are children, disabled people or adults over 60 years old, as well as household income of residents, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

However, SNAP recipients will not return to pre-pandemic SNAP benefit levels. According to a USDA blog post on January 27, 2023, the average monthly SNAP benefit per person before the pandemic was $121; that number is estimated at $169 per person after the emergency appropriations run out in March.

According to the Center for Budgetary and Policy Priorities, there are two reasons for the increase in benefits from pre-pandemic levels. First, because of the annual cost-of-living adjustments, which automatically adjust the amount of benefits received by SNAP recipients based on inflation. Another reason is the USDA’s October 2021 change to make SNAP benefits more accurately reflect the cost of healthy eating.