Advocacy groups say inflation rates and cuts to SNAP benefits are hurting Nebraska families

(Archive Photo by Elizabeth Rembert, Nebraska Public Media News)

By Grant Winterer, Nebraska Public Media

(July 17, 2026)

Inflation rates and cuts to SNAP benefits are hurting Nebraska families, according to an advocacy group.

Angie Lauritsen is the state director of Nebraska For Us, which has been busy raising funds and gathering diapers for new families in North Omaha.

She said cuts to food benefits, stagnant wages and inflation mean that young Nebraska families are saving less, defaulting on loans and relying increasingly on area food pantries.

“These are warning signs in our community that families are not doing well,” Lauritsen said. “We’re just trying to get by as best we can, and unfortunately we don’t have policies that are coming through that are really helping us.

“If you talk to any food bank, any pantry, they’ll tell you they’ve started to see their numbers start to rise. They’ve seen an overall increase in the number of people in need right now.”

Lauritsen added that the cutting of food benefits starts a cascade of financial hardship for families already struggling to make ends meet.

“When you start cutting SNAP, when you start cutting food benefits, they’re going to start pulling money from other items in order to get that food,” she said. “Diapers are just one of those necessities.”

Mary Jane Truemper, head of the Nebraska Republican Party, doesn’t entirely agree. She said the cuts to SNAP – Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – benefits have mostly been a restructuring effort to stop ineligible payments.

“That was more geared toward addressing that we were providing SNAP payments to those who were here illegally,” she said. “So people had to reapply for SNAP benefits to receive them again.”

Truemper added that the inflation numbers have in reality improved overall since Trump began his second term.

“Since Trump took office, inflation’s stayed between 2.5% to 3.5%. Compare that with a 21% increase over the Biden Administration’s four years. Inflation’s never zero, but where it is now, it gives us a chance to catch up.”

Truemper does acknowledge, though, that inflation is an issue facing all Nebraskans, regardless of political affiliation.

As of June, the annualized inflation rate was 3.5%, up from 2.7% 12 months ago. It’s also higher than at the same time two years ago, in the final year of Joe Biden’s presidency.

“Inflation is a problem. I see it at the gas station, the grocery store,” she said. “What we’ve seen is that historically, those prices aren’t coming down. But what has to happen now is that wages have to catch up.”

She said one of the big ways the state and nation can catch up is through reindustrialization and increasing domestic energy production.

“It won’t happen overnight,” she added, “But I believe we’re heading in the right direction.”