Soaring food prices are adding strains on families who are seeing reductions in multiple kinds of financial assistance. One federal program that ends this month had given nearly 30 million Americans extra food stamps during the pandemic.

Households in Illinois receiving SNAP food benefits will see them decrease in March as a pandemic-era policy giving families additional benefits comes to an end. The average person will receive about $90 less in SNAP benefits per month.

New Trump administration rules taking effect April 1 put hundreds of thousands of people at risk of losing their food stamp benefits. They hit particularly hard in places like Illinois, where roughly 90,000 will be affected statewide.

A Trump administration rule change could leave almost 700,000 people without food stamp benefits by mid-2020. How those changes could impact Illinois residents.

Doctors and public health experts warn of poor health and rising costs they say will come from sweeping Trump administration changes that would deny green cards to many immigrants who use Medicaid, as well as food stamps and other forms of public assistance. 

At issue is a federal policy that allows people who receive benefits through other government programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, to automatically qualify for the food aid program known as SNAP. 

The Illinois Department of Human Services announced Thursday that Link cards, which serve as a sort of debit card for food stamps, will be loaded with credit Thursday or Friday. 

Individuals often drift in and out of the SNAP system intermittently, but the number who suddenly lost benefits spiked last month to 41,000 after recipients apparently missed a Nov. 5 deadline.

The rollout of Cook County’s sweetened beverage tax has been anything but sweet and easy. Now there’s concern it could put food stamps at risk.