10. Department of Agriculture · Minor
Re-evaluate the Thrifty Food Plan benefit increase
Printed page 300 10. Department of Agriculture
“Re-evaluate the Thrifty Food Plan. In a dramatic overreach, the Biden Administration unilaterally increased food stamp benefits by at least 23 percent in October 2021.”
What has happened
- Partially done
Congress re-evaluated the Thrifty Food Plan and shut the door the 2021 increase came through, without rolling the increase back. P.L. 119-21 Sec. 10101 rewrites 7 U.S.C. 2012(u): it fixes the market baskets to the "Thrifty Food Plan, 2021" report, provides that the cost "may only be adjusted in accordance with this subsection", limits annual adjustment to the June CPI-U from 2025-10-01 onward, permits a re-evaluation of the market baskets no earlier than 2027-10-01, and — the operative limb — provides that "the Secretary shall not increase the cost of the thrifty food plan based on a re-evaluation under this paragraph". `partial` rather than `done` because the 23 percent October 2021 increase itself stands: the statute makes the next re-evaluation cost-neutral, it does not undo the last one, and no re-evaluation has been performed.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- The enrolled text of Sec. 10101 was read at govinfo.
- No FNS rulemaking implements Sec. 10101: the Federal Register phrase search for “Thrifty Food Plan” over the window returns five documents, all Summer EBT benefit-level notices or information collections, and USDA’s 2026 Unified Agenda carries no Thrifty Food Plan RIN.
- A judgment call: this item is not marked as needing an act of Congress, because the Mandate framed the re-evaluation as an executive act; the statute nevertheless answered the ask and is the right instrument to date it from.
- Action
- other
- Object
- Thrifty Food Plan
- ID
- 778