A stalled congressional effort to update the nation’s five-year Farm Bill hinges on a disagreement over how to calculate food stamp benefits for 42.1 million Americans.
In a letter sent to U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday, the Democratic Women’s Caucus urged him to rework the current proposal so that a 2021 update that raised monthly allowances in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, would remain.
Pennsylvania Democratic U.S. Reps. Susan Wild, Chrissy Houlahan, Summer Lee, Madeleine Dean and Mary Gay Scanlon joined 60 other House lawmakers as signatories.
“I firmly believe that in the richest nation in the world, no one should go to bed hungry because they can’t afford food for themselves or their family,” Wild said in a statement issued Tuesday. “That’s why I am deeply disappointed my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have put forth a Farm Bill that would gut key nutrition programs families in our community depend on.”
The caucus said the current version of the Farm, Food and National Security Act would cut $30 billion from SNAP over the next decade – a reduction that would disproportionately hit single-parent households, among which women comprise 92%.
Three-quarters of the money spent in the 2018 farm bill supports SNAP. Although the legislation’s update is a year overdue, ideological differences over how to allocate benefits remain.
In a plea to Republican colleagues, Wild said she would “never abandon vulnerable women and children across our community, commonwealth, and country who rely on this support to stay healthy and fed.”
The refrain, however, doesn’t ring true for Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, the chief architect of the legislation. In remarks offered on May 23, he said the “cut” Democratic critics refer to is a reversion back to a benefit calculation used for more than 40 years in the Thrifty Food Plan before a Biden administration executive order “unilaterally, intentionally – and according to GAO – unlawfully” changed it.
GAO is the acronym of the Government Accountability Office.
The new calculation boosted monthly benefits 21% and added $256 billion to the total cost of Thompson’s bill. According to a report from the Center for American Progress, this means Pennsylvania receives an additional $774 million for its 2 million SNAP beneficiaries.
“The administration and my Democratic colleagues purport the update was science-based and transparent, and have even gone so far to say that no one can arbitrarily increase SNAP,” Thompson said. “However, Secretary Vilsack stood by his team as they did just that, through a rushed process devoid of thoroughness and filled with politics.”
He added that returning to the “cost-neutral” calculation restores Congress’ authority – which alone must decide if it should be raised above inflation.
The Thrifty Food Program, first developed in 1975, determines the lowest monthly cost of a nutritionally balanced grocery budget for a four-person household. That calculation factors into the maximum SNAP benefits offered.
Although the foods identified in the plan have been updated three times since its inception — in 1983, 1999 and 2006 — the anticipated cost has not.
SNAP does, however, rise with cost-of-living adjustments, which are reviewed separately from the Thrifty Food Program.
An analysis published by the National Library of Medicine found that the 2021 reevaluation “yielded no significant changes” to beneficiaries’ food security, dietary intake or mental health outcomes compared to nonparticipants.
Although the Republican-led House supports rolling back the benefit to pre-2021 levels, the Democrat-majority Senate will likely share in the sentiments of Wild and other members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus.
Michigan U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who chairs the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, kept the 2021 change in her version of the bill, saying that doing so will lift 2.4 million Americans out of poverty.
