GOP cuts to food assistance would hit rural America especially hard

People in Marsha Keene’s community are already struggling to cover the basics.

Most of the clients Keene serves at the Susanna Wesley Family Learning Center in southeast Missouri are working but still rely on federal food assistance to keep up with ever-increasing costs.

The center provides a domestic violence shelter, parenting education and summer camps to struggling families stretched thin by living expenses. Keene, the center’s CEO, worries about how her clients can absorb significant cuts to food stamps, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

“I don’t see communities just being able to absorb that need,” she said. “I don’t know what the impact is going to be yet, but I cannot imagine that it’s going to be good.”

Billions in cuts to federal food a