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.
The CTC-and-SNAP-to-the-rescue edition. The Delta variant is spreading rapidly, making up more than 98 percent of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. The daily death rate is roughly double what it was at the beginning of August. Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi are seeing their highest daily caseloads since the start of the pandemic. Alabama has run out of ICU beds. “It’s absolutely due to delta; it’s absolutely due to unvaccinated people,” said David Wohl, a specialist in infectious diseases at the University of North Carolina. “There is an incredible increase in hospitalizations across the spectrum, from just needing oxygen and some care to needing serious interventions to keep people alive. If everyone was vaccinated, our hospitals would not be anywhere near where we are.”
Endia Villar, a working mom in Allen, Texas, with a two-year-old daughter and a baby on the way, was recently asked how she spent the $300 child tax credit deposit she received last month. “Groceries,” she said. “I am pregnant, and I eat like a teenage boy. We needed more food. So it – it worked out perfectly.” Endia is not alone. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse survey, 47 percent of parents receiving the expanded benefit used at least some of the funds on food.
In conjunction with the We Are Home campaign, People’s Action and the Coalition on Human Needs this week launched a national week of action to urge Congress to include Dreamers, immigrants who came here fleeing natural disasters or violence in their home countries, and essential workers, including farmworkers, in the Senate’s budget resolution.
Today the second round of monthly benefits under the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) began landing in the bank accounts of millions of families with children aged 0 to 17. The Coalition on Human Needs, working with Public News Service, is telling the stories of communities and families that are benefiting from the CTC expansion. Here are three stories that have been produced this past week.
In the early hours of Wednesday, August 11, the U.S. Senate voted along party lines in favor of a budget resolution that CHN said “provides a blueprint for our nation’s future that will do unprecedented good for the vast majority of Americans.” CHN, in a letter addressed to members of the Senate, said the legislation “will significantly raise living standards and economic security for most of us. Your vote for it is a vote for more opportunity, dramatically less poverty, and a growing middle class.”
The August Awakening edition. Yes, COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are way up – a trend experts say may continue into the fall. Yet there is also evidence of an awakening – an awareness, finally, that the vaccine can protect them against a disease that’s hitting closer and closer to home. Alabama and Arkansas – two states with low vaccination rates – have seen their daily rates of vaccinations double in the past three weeks. Louisiana, which now leads the nation in new infections per capita, has seen its daily vaccination rate nearly quadruple in the past few weeks.
Congress is embarking upon an extended recess this month and beyond – but advocates for better health care and paid leave for every worker are using the August recess to advocate for a budget bill that includes their priorities. Protect Our Care has announced a 19-state tour that kicks off in Bangor and Portland, Maine this Monday, August 9. The nationwide tour – its third – will call for lowering health care costs, expanding coverage, and reducing racial disparities in care. And Paid Leave For All kicked off its bus tour with a stop in Providence, Rhode Island on Monday, August 2.
Just one day before a federal moratorium on evictions expires, House and Senate Democrats, the Biden Administration, housing advocates and local and state officials in some jurisdictions scrambled Friday to avert a nationwide humanitarian disaster. But one slim hope was dashed. The House of Representatives could not find the votes to pass an extension of the moratorium on its last day before recess.
A new report published this week by Matthew Gardner and Steve Wamhoff of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that 39 profitable corporations in the S&P 500 or Fortune 500 paid no federal income tax from 2018 through 2020, the first three years that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was in effect. The 39 corporations were profitable in each of those three years and, as a group, reported to shareholders that they had generated $122 billion in profits during that period.
Even as the U.S. remains in the throes of the deadly pandemic, medical experts, health care advocates, and policy makers are turning their attention to a profound challenge: how to provide care and economic security for potentially millions of Americans facing long-term COVID-19-related disability. As of this week, some 34.5 million Americans are confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 since the pandemic began – the number could be significantly higher. New, emerging studies show one –fourth or more of the people who contract the virus suffer from some form of “long covid.”
The Coalition on Human Needs, working with Public News Service, is telling the stories of communities and families that are benefiting from the Child Tax Credit expansion. Here are seven stories that have been produced in the past eight days.
The Pandemic of the Unvaccinated edition. New COVID-19 infections are on the rise in all 50 states, in some cases sharply. The Delta variant is flourishing, racing through the bodies of the unvaccinated, particularly in Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, where most people have not received their shots, and in Florida, which critics say opened up too fully and too quickly. In Arkansas, where only 44.5 percent are fully vaccinated, there are 38 new cases per 100,000 residents. Contrast that with Vermont, with its 77.3 percent vaccination rate and just two cases per 100,000 residents.
