# Understanding the Feeding Rural Families Act of 2023

This bill makes a specific change to how the federal government calculates food assistance benefits for people in Hawaii. Right now, the government uses something called the "thrifty food plan" to determine how much money people on food stamps (officially called SNAP or food assistance) should receive each month. The thrifty food plan is basically a calculation of the minimum cost to buy nutritious food, and it's supposed to reflect real-world prices. The problem is that Hawaii currently isn't included in this calculation at all, which means people receiving food assistance there get benefits based on prices from the mainland instead of the actual, much higher costs of groceries in Hawaii.

This bill fixes that by making sure both the urban and rural parts of Hawaii are included in the thrifty food plan calculation. Why does this matter? Hawaii has some of the highest food prices in the country because almost everything has to be shipped there by boat or plane. A gallon of milk or a loaf of bread costs significantly more in Honolulu than it does in most of America. By including Hawaii in the official calculation, people receiving food assistance in the state would get higher monthly benefits that actually reflect what they need to spend to feed their families. This would help both people living in Hawaii's cities and those in more remote rural areas of the islands.

The practical impact is straightforward: families struggling to afford food in Hawaii would receive more adequate assistance to actually purchase groceries at local prices. Without this change, people are essentially being shortchanged because their benefits don't account for the unique economic reality of living in an island state with limited food production and high transportation costs.

Feeding Rural Families Act of 2023

Tokuda, Jill N.

Feeding Rural Families Act of 2023This bill provides for separate food cost calculations for urban and rural parts of Hawaii for the purposes of determining Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) maximum monthly benefit allotments. Specifically, the bill requires separate&nbsp;food cost adjustments in the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) for urban and rural parts of Hawaii.SNAP maximum monthly benefit allotments are tied to the cost of purchasing a nutritionally adequate low-cost diet, as measured by the Department of Agriculture-created and -calculated TFP. Maximum allotments are set at the monthly cost of the TFP for a four-person family, adjusted for family size. Under current law,&nbsp;maximum allotments are higher (to reflect the cost of food) in Hawaii, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as in urban and rural parts of Alaska.