Tell Congress: Protect Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

 Stop the Attack on Food Security!

Contact Your Representative to Protect SNAP in the Farm Bill

The Farm Bill (H.R. 2) has reached the House, and it is just as bad as we expected. Republican leadership, including bill author Rep. Mike Conaway, has pushed a purely partisan Farm Bill crafted around Speaker Ryan’s welfare fantasy, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is first on the chopping block. Despite Republicans’ claims of “no cuts to SNAP,” the bill recklessly restructures the program and restricts eligibility in a way that puts food security at risk for millions of low-income households. Email your Representative now to protect SNAP. 

Proposed eligibility restrictions, benefit cuts, and strict work requirements would deepen poverty and food insecurity for millions of Americans. Specifically, the Farm Bill undermines SNAP by threatening:

1. Changes to eligibility, which could cut off about 2 million people from some or all of their nutrition assistance benefits. Nearly 90% of those benefits go to households with members who work for low-wages while receiving SNAP.
2. Punitive work requirements, which could affect an additional 6 to 8 million unemployed, underemployed, and working SNAP recipients who would have an additional burden to document their hours to keep food on the table.

1. Under its “one strike and you’re out” provision, failure to meet new requirements within a month of receiving SNAP would mean losing food assistance for a year. The second infraction would cause loss of benefits for three years.
2. Strict requirements would also be expanded to apply to older people living in poverty -- raised from 49 up to 59 years old -- and to parents raising children as young as 6 years old.

Let’s be clear: Republicans are using language about “opportunity” and “self-sufficiency,” but their policies are wrong. The Farm Bill removes $23 billion from direct nutrition assistance benefits, and instead chooses to divert money to half-baked skills and job training programs. In order to receive nutrition benefits, people experiencing food insecurity would have to navigate a new, massive bureaucracy that tracks monthly paychecks for millions of SNAP recipients, and states would be left to sort through the red tape.

The current SNAP proposal connects to a larger GOP strategy of imposing work requirements on various anti-poverty programs, including Medicaid. We all have a stake in protecting SNAP by pushing back against this attack on people experiencing poverty and the programs that help them get by. On the heels of a tax policy that rewards corporations and the wealthiest Americans, it is unacceptable that the House could now vote to take food away from the most vulnerable.

Voice your opposition as a person of faith! Tell your Representative to oppose the Farm Bill. We say no to changes in SNAP which would 1) take away states’ flexibility in getting food to tables, 2) restrict access or lessen benefits for working families, and 3) require people to work in order to receive food assistance. Tell your Representative that you oppose H.R. 2.

Email your member of Congress and remind them that our duty as a nation includes feeding the hungry. As NETWORK tracks the bill, we will alert you about future actions you can take to ensure the Farm Bill protects and strengthens SNAP, rather than weakens it.

Tell Congress: Protect SNAP!