By Tyler Durden

US food banks in Republican states are preparing for a massive demand surge in food aid this summer as 24 GOP-led states are set to end federal unemployment assistance before they’re set to expire on Sept. 6.

The benefits set to lapse include the additional $300 weekly federal supplement and other Pandemic Unemployment Assistance programs that support low-income households. The policies have also contributed to a historic labor shortage after millions of people received more money via government benefits to staying at home than actually work.

With local economies reopening up across the country, here are states that are pulling pandemic benefits early so that millions of people can reenter the labor market:

Jun. 19: Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming

Jun. 26: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas

Jun. 27: Montana, Oklahoma, Utah

Jul. 3: Tennessee

Jul. 10: Arizona

According to JPMorgan, cutting benefits is “tied to politics, not economics.”

With two dozen GOP-led states pulling benefits within the next month, millions of people are expected to return to food bank lines this summer, similar to what was seen last spring/summer.

Already, US Census Bureau figures show 19.3 million adults experienced food insecurity issues.

Food banks around the country are well aware that millions of Americans are set to lose generous unemployment benefits, according to The Guardian.

“We are still distributing about a million to a million and a half more meals each month than we did pre Covid,” said Teresa Schryver, advocacy manager for the St Louis Area Food Bank in Bridgeton, Missouri services for residents in Missouri and nearby Illinois.

Schryver said there could be another “spike in July and August as we’re losing the unemployment benefits here in Missouri, so we might be doing 2m meals again for a couple of months.”

She said the public health crisis is abating this spring as summer approaches due to the high level of vaccinations, but the lingering economic effects tied to virus-related shutdowns has economically doomed millions of people.

“We hope it’s not going to take us 10 years to get our food insecurity rates back down to pre-pandemic levels, but that’s the kind of timeline we’re looking at,” Schryver said.