I took a mini-version of the SNAP Challenge – to see what I could buy for the approximately $6 for one day that SNAP now provides for one person. The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) encourages people to take the SNAP Challenge to help us understand SNAP and the real danger of cuts in a very hands-on way. So I drove over to the supermarket, thinking about how I was already at an advantage because I had a car and lived in a neighborhood with supermarkets nearby.

Here’s what I got for $6.06: a yogurt (breakfast); a frozen cheese pizza for one (lunch); a very little chicken pot pie (dinner); and a bag of frozen sugar snap peas that would be enough to last for several meals as a vegetable side. Nothing to drink, no seasonings. Kind of heavy on the carbs, but some dairy and the healthy peas. I don’t know what a nutritionist would say about the protein.

Of course, if I was relying on SNAP for a month, I would have more benefits to start the month and could buy a 5 pound bag of rice for about $5; there was a special time-limited deal on bone-in chicken thighs for $1.59/pound; and you’d have to pick up some kind of fat or cooking oil, and other veggies to make a number of meals, plus maybe some kind of milk and some breakfast cereal. The costs pile up fast but of course the items purchased can last for multiple meals. Most people like coffee, or something to drink besides tap water. Just buying for the one day didn’t give me any bulk purchase options, so I know I wasn’t really contending with the week in/week out challenges that regular SNAP users face.

Six dollars per person per day is not a lot for food. It’s not uncommon for families to run out of SNAP benefits before the month is out, and we all know about the price of eggs. But here’s the most important thing to know:

Some members of Congress want to provide less. They don’t like that the Biden Administration’s Department of Agriculture updated the estimate of the cost of a cheap but nutritious diet, which hadn’t been done for years (USDA did adjust for inflation, but hadn’t revised the diet to reflect updated nutritional guidance). The change USDA made starting in 2022 added about $1.40 per person per day to the SNAP benefit, to about $6.20 in 2024.

The House-passed budget resolution assumes an enormous $230 billion cut over ten years out of the Department of Agriculture; most of that would have to come from SNAP and most likely from other nutrition programs too. Some are proposing to take that $1.40 back, despite all the rising prices that have hit households over the past several years.

So here’s an extra SNAP challenge: what would I take away from my day of food to cut my budget down by $1.40? Well – cancel the chicken pot pie ($1.39). But that was dinner!

Maybe the pizza would stretch for two meals.

But really – is this the choice we want millions of Americans to be making? Should they be forced into this choice in the name of deficit reduction, to offset some of the profligate costs of the $4.5 trillion in tax breaks Trump and his allies in Congress want to enact?

Including an estimate by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy of the impact of tariffs plus the Trump tax cuts, in 2026 people with incomes up to $28,600 (the poorest 20 percent) will pay $790 more in taxes, while the richest 1 percent ($914,900 and up) will pay $36,320 less. SNAP beneficiaries are in the lowest 20 percent. So they pay hundreds more. And they give up dinner.

If you don’t like this version of the SNAP challenge, send your representative and senators a note: Demand Congress save SNAP from extreme budget cuts.