April 3, 2019
Page 11
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O PINION
Cruel Threats to Hungry Families and Children
Join us right now in
speaking out
m arian W right e lDelman
Once again children and
families are under attack. After
failing in past efforts to slash
funding for the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP, also known as food stamps), the
Trump administration is taking a new ap-
proach to crippling the program millions
of families in the United States depend on
to survive and alleviate their hunger pangs.
Recently the administration proposed
regulations to tighten restrictions on access
to SNAP benefits for unemployed and un-
deremployed people who can’t document
sufficient weekly work hours. This rule
would take food assistance away from an
estimated 755,000 people who cannot find
work.
It is also a callous response to the bipar-
tisan Farm Bill which passed in the fall and
rejected harmful cuts to SNAP. If this rule
goes forward, it’s not just unemployed and
underemployed adults who will go hun-
gry—poor children suffer when adults in
their household lose access to food assis-
tance. But it’s not too late to protect these
children if you make your voice heard im-
mediately and tell the Department of Agri-
culture not to take food away from needy
by
families.
Children need reliable access to healthy
food to thrive. Hunger and malnutrition
jeopardize children’s health, devel-
opment, school readiness and job
readiness. SNAP helps feed more
than 40 million low income peo-
ple in America including nearly 20
million children—more than one in
four—and lifted more than 1.5 mil-
lion children out of poverty in 2016,
more than any other government program.
Given the critical role SNAP plays for
children and families in communities
across the country, the proposed changes
that would kick hundreds of thousands of
people off SNAP are mean spirited, short
sighted, and harmful, will increase food in-
security, and must be stopped.
While current law doesn’t permit SNAP
work requirements for children or adults
with children, the ripple effects of these
expanded restrictions extend beyond the
people they target. Imposing work re-
quirements on able bodied adults without
dependents harms children too because
children living in poverty often depend on
pooled resources including SNAP benefits
from extended family members, such as
older siblings, who don’t claim them as de-
pendents. This means time limits will hurt
not only the adults cut off from the food
they need to survive but also children and
others they may be helping support.
Studies also show low-income parents
without primary custody of children often
rely on the availability of SNAP and other
forms of assistance including the Earned
Income Tax Credit to help them stretch
available dollars from work and afford
child support payments. In both scenari-
os additional burdensome restrictions on
SNAP eligibility for these adults means
fewer available resources to support the
health and well-being of children.
Young people aging out of foster care
without permanent families also will be at
increased risk. They may continue to suffer
the trauma that led them into care or result-
ed from their time in care, leading to high
rates of unemployment, poverty and in-
creased need for food assistance. This vul-
nerable population already faces enough
formidable barriers to accessing SNAP
due to existing work requirements. Any ef-
forts to further restrict access or eliminate
state exemptions from these requirements
would be particularly harmful.
The newly released 2020 Trump Budget
makes clear this administration is willing
to slash programs needy families depend
on to make ends meet while increasing
military spending and diverting billions
to the border wall. The President’s harsh
budget calls for $220 billion in spending
cuts to SNAP over the next decade. Let’s
fight back at a White House that takes aim
at basic supports millions of children de-
pend on.
Join us right now in speaking out against
harmful changes to SNAP! As the Food
Research and Action Center puts it, echo-
ing the gospels, prophets and teachings of
every major religion: Food for the hungry
shouldn’t have a time limit.
Marian Wright Edelman is founder and
president emerita of the Children’s Defense
Fund.