On a grocery run in early April, Sandra Allen added a Welch’s juice product to her grocery basket at Target in Pflugerville. She had often used her SNAP benefits to buy juice for her 9-year-old daughter in the past. But this time, she couldn’t make the purchase: Texas implemented a new law that prohibits Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits from being used to buy candy or sweetened beverages.
Allen knew this change was coming. She just didn’t expect it to apply to apple juice.
“It’s the embarrassment of taking it to the counter and them saying, ‘Well, you can’t get this,'” she said. “It’s embarrassing enough to have to pull out a SNAP card, so everybody behind you really knows, ‘Wow, she really can’t afford anything. She had to put half her basket back.'”…