Jason Cook, an Assistant Professor in the Eccles School’s Division of Quantitative Analysis of Markets and Organizations as well as the Marriner S. Eccles Institute, was featured on a Fox 13 News segment talking about the impact of cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) amid the ongoing shutdown of the federal government.

Cook noted that SNAP benefits now paused, the implications are considerable for the substantial number of Americans who depend on them to get by.

The ripple effect, he added, is that stores which sell goods to SNAP recipients will also be feeling the squeeze.

“One in eight Americans are served by SNAP, and SNAP sales account for roughly 12% of grocery sales in the U.S. And for any individual family, SNAP accounts for roughly 8% of what they would spend on food in their family,” Cook said in an interview with Fox 13 reporter Mythili Gubbi. “So it’s a big share of all of these different dimensions. So, if you think about just suddenly removing that, that’s going to have huge implications.”

Cook would go on to say that as people who rely on such benefits now rearrange their financial priorities to account for SNAP’s absence, there will be related consequences for the U.S. economy in general, with discretionary spending becoming increasingly unfeasible.

“Anything that’s not essential would be categories that people could be saving more on and using that money to put food on the table,” Cook said.