WASHINGTON – Georgia could lose nearly $700 million annually in food stamp funds under cuts proposed by the Trump Administration. 

Anti-hunger advocates fear the $193 billion reduction President Donald Trump proposes to the federal food stamp program during the next 10 years will hurt millions of needy Americans who rely it for their daily sustenance.

They’re concerned too many individuals below the poverty line or who make barely enough to live on will either be denied food stamps or experience cuts in the average monthly allowance of $125.

More than 44 million Americans received food stamps last year from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which currently costs the government more than $70 billion annually. 

Georgia could lose as much as $666 million a year in food stamp assistance under the Trump proposal, according to Melissa Johnson, senior policy analyst with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. If that holds, she said, hungry children from low-income families would experience trouble learning in school.

Even some Republicans and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, a farmer and former Georgia governor whose agency administers the food stamp program, hardly sound enthused about the proposed cuts.

 Agriculture Department spokeswoman Nina Anand said Congress will likely modify the president’s budget request and so it is difficult to gauge the precise impact of the food stamp program reduction.

But, she added, “there is no point in sugar coating” that the department will have to live with a reduced budget and less money for the food stamps.

Trump’s budget anticipates an improved economy will result in fewer individuals in need of food stamps. It is also grants far fewer work requirement waivers to able-bodied adults without dependents – a cohort the conservative Heritage Foundation estimates at four million recipients.

Human service advocates said it could kick more people off the program who cannot find work in regions ranging from struggling coal industry states such as West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio to hard-pressed fishing communities in Massachusetts and other coastal states.

Additionally, Trump’s administration would reduce the federal outlay by shifting a portion of the cost of the food stamp program to the states, beginning with a 10 percent share in 2020 and building to 25 percent three years later.

That change alone would require the states to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars in supplemental support, with the more populated states facing the biggest burden. In the case of Texas, officials estimate it could cost $1 billion or more annually.

Human service advocates say they worry about states taking on more costs for basic human services at a time they are trying to overcome deep budget deficits that have built up since the great recession.

Oklahoma lawmakers, for example, recently slashed state health and human services by $33 million – a cut the state says it cannot absorb “without significant consequences to services and our ability to administer them effectively.”

Unable to make up the decline in federal dollars, advocates for human services say the states will have no recourse other than to reduce the number of people who get food stamps, lower the average assistance of $125 per month or both.