The White House wants to roll back a policy called Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility, which helps low-income families enroll in SNAP if they’re already eligible for other anti-poverty programs. When you sync up the eligibility for these programs, it does three things: 1) it reduces red tape, 2) it helps the working poor gradually decrease their SNAP benefits as their wages begin to grow rather than face an abrupt cut-off and 3) it automatically certifies kids whose families participate in SNAP in the free school lunch program.
Restricting or eliminating this policy would be a massive step backwards in the fight to end childhood hunger. If this happens, more kids will be hungry.
Here are three numbers you need to know to understand the impact on kids:
- 3 million: The number of low-income people who could lose access to SNAP, including tens of thousands of low-income families and their kids.
- 500,000: The number of children from poor families who will lose automatic eligibility for free school meals.
- 1 in 7: The number of kids who already live in families that struggle with food insecurity. This can look like a lot of different things - the mom who skips a meal so her kids can eat dinner or cuts back on groceries in order to pay the electric bill.
Instead of making it harder for low-income families to make ends meet, we should be doing more to ensure all kids in America can get the food they need to grow up healthy, strong and successful, no matter their families' circumstances.
There's a short window of time to act for kids. Tell the Administration to reverse this flawed proposal.
