"Make no mistake," Davis tells the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, "the Administration's proposal would harm working poor families."
Contact: Christy Felling at 202.649.4340 or cfelling@strength.org
Link to Davis's Oral Testimony, as prepared: http://bit.ly/020620Davis
Washington, D.C. – Today Share Our Strength Senior Vice President Lisa Davis will testify in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy about the harmful impact the White House rule to restrict Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE) will have on working poor families and children.
The hearing is one in a series of four that the Committee is holding to examine proposed Administration rules that would be harmful to children.
“BBCE is an effective practical policy,” Davis will tell the committee. “There are many families with gross incomes modestly above 130% of poverty, but who still have difficulty making ends meet due to high expenses for basic necessities like housing and child care. BBCE allows these families to remain eligible for SNAP and free school meals. It creates efficiency and reduces administrative burdens on state agencies and schools. But more importantly, it encourages work. It helps low-income families move out of poverty and build financial security.”
Under the White House’s proposed rule to roll back BBCE, 3.1 million people, more than 2 million of whom are in families with children, will lose their SNAP benefits entirely and an estimated 982,000 children will lose the automatic certification for free school meals that results from their family’s receipt of SNAP.
According to Davis, when children lose access to SNAP and school meals, “they face a double whammy of meals lost at home and at school. It exacerbates all of the other problems hungry children face: diminishing their academic performance, their mental and physical health, and their opportunity to achieve their full potential. Food is one of the most important school supplies a child has.”
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About No Kid Hungry
No child should go hungry in America. But in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, 1 in 4 kids could face hunger this year. No Kid Hungry is working to end childhood hunger by helping launch and improve programs that give all kids the healthy food they need to thrive. This is a problem we know how to solve. No Kid Hungry is a campaign of Share Our Strength, an organization committed to ending hunger and poverty.