Take action today! Tell the Administration: It’s Unacceptable to Take Food Away from Working Families, Children, Seniors and People with Disabilities
Food assistance is at risk--again. Just months after Congress rejected cuts to our most important food assistance program (SNAP), the Administration is now proposing to implement, through executive action, a second SNAP benefits cut it failed to secure through legislation. Remarkably, the Trump Administration is targeting people who manage to increase their earnings modestly and who struggle to maintain a small amount of savings. Increasing earnings and maintaining savings – these are exactly the steps forward government policies should encourage. The Trump Administration wants to make these people worse off.
More than 40 states choose under current law to provide SNAP to families with more savings than otherwise allowed by SNAP rules, and to allow SNAP benefits to working households with somewhat higher income but with significant expenses for shelter and child care. This current policy option is known as “Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility” (or “Cat El”). The Trump Administration is proposing to eliminate these options for states.
The impact? The Trump U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposal would eliminate SNAP benefits for 3.1 million individuals and take free school meals away from 500,000 children in those families.
Cat El policies have been in place for more than two decades. Congress has repeatedly rejected efforts to gut Cat El. This USDA rulemaking is an attempt to side-step Congress and is outside USDA’s authority.
We need your help once again!
We need to generate lots of comments making clear that these cuts would harm struggling people. The 60-day comment period started on July 24 when the proposed rule was published in the Federal Register, and ends September 23.
Comments must be received by USDA on or before September 23, 2019. You can make comments easily by using our portal. Just follow the directions for copying and adding to the sample text and pasting it in the comment box.
If you have any questions, please contact Debbie Weinstein (dweinstein@chn.org). We want to help!
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