Congress must reject any and all funding cuts to essential nutrition programs
If the Farm Bill to be considered in the House Committee on Agriculture on May 23 becomes law, it will mean a cut of nearly $30 billion in future SNAP benefits over a decade.
Such cuts are unconscionable. For many children, they will make learning more difficult and lead to negative health outcomes. They will force families and older adults to choose between putting food on the table and paying for other expenses such as rent, utility bills, or prescription drugs. They will also harm our economy, removing the stimulative benefits of SNAP and even hurting farmers and ranchers along the way.
SNAP is the most effective anti-hunger program in the U.S. It reduces hunger by 30% and provides nutritious meals to one-quarter of America’s children.
The House bill makes these cuts by limiting the USDA’s ability to update the Thrifty Food Plan, which determines SNAP benefit levels, to reflect the real costs of a nutritious diet, based on science, along with reflecting food prices that remain stubbornly high. This will make it tougher for families experiencing food insecurity as well as the food banks that aid them. These would be the largest cuts to SNAP benefits in almost 30 years if enacted. In addition, these changes will trigger more than $500 million in cuts to Summer EBT, which provides grocery benefits to children in low-income families during the summer when schools are closed, along with $100 million in cuts to The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), which provides food for food banks and food pantries to distribute to individuals and families.
The House bill also would allow states to let private corporations take over determining eligibility for SNAP. Where this has been tried, replacing merit-based staff resulted in corporate skimping on careful help to people applying for or renewing benefits in order to maximize profits. It would also reverse previously enacted steps to reduce agriculture-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
During this time when many families grapple with the cost of housing and food, Congress must do everything in its power to provide relief to those who need it most.
Click “Start Writing” to send a message to Congress urging them to reject any and all cuts to nutrition programs in the FY2025 Farm Bill.
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CHN’s COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship January 29, 2021
The K-shaped recovery edition. COVID-19 daily infections are down over the past two weeks. Hospitalizations are down. Deaths are down, slightly. Vaccinations are on the rise – more than 22 million Americans have received their first shot, and the rolling average of shots per day has climbed to over one million. All of which is encouraging news.
But the economic news is not so encouraging. New information out this week confirms what many have feared: we are experiencing a K-shaped recovery. The top end of the economy continues to improve while lower earners fall farther and farther behind. The businesses hit hardest in 2020 – and those that continue to struggle today, if they even still exist – disproportionately employ women, people of color, and workers without college educations.
Vaccines alone won’t pull us out of this economic morass. Only swift, bold, and long-lasting action by Congress will do that, and that means passage of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan. But vaccines are key, as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell noted this week, when he saidthere is “nothing more important to the economy right now than getting people vaccinated.”
That said, vaccines by themselves won’t put food on the table, open child care centers, or bring back the ten million jobs that have evaporated since the pandemic began. Along with the vaccines, we need to pass the plan now. You can tell your members of Congress to pass the plan here.
-34%/-2%
As of Thursday, January 28, new COVID-19 infections in the U.S. numbered165,073, a 34 percent decrease from two weeks earlier. 3,862 deaths were reported, down 2 percent. Tweet this.
3.5%
The U.S. economy shrunkby 3.5 percent in 2020, its worst performance since 1946. Tweet this.
45 weeks
Last week marked the 45th consecutive week that new unemployment insurance claims were higher than the worst week of the Great Recession. 1.27 million new claims were reported– that includes regular UI claims plus Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims (gig/self-employed workers). Tweet this.
10%
The nation’s real unemployment rate, if we adjust the official rate with the decline in workforce participation along with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ estimate of misclassification. Tweet this.
More than 20%
The Federal Reserve estimatesthat the unemployment rate for workers in the bottom wage quartile is more than 20 percent. Tweet this.
More than 1 million
In three of the biggest employment sectors for low-education (high school diploma or less) workers – construction, bars and restaurants, and hotels and motels – more than a million jobs were lost between December 2019 and December 2020.
3.9%/8.5%
The unemployment rate is 3.9 percent for those Americans able to work from home; among those who have to report to a job site, it is 8.5 percent.
Nearly 24 million
The numberof adults who reported their households did not have enough to eat during the previous seven days, according to Census data gathered January 6-18. That’s 11 percent of all adults in the U.S.
15.1 million
The numberof adult renters who weren’t caught up in rent. That’s one in five adult renters.
More than 80 million
The numberof adults who reported that it was somewhat or very difficult to cover usual expenses during the past seven days. That’s 35 percent of all adults.