Committee on Agriculture
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative:
On behalf of the 3 million members of the National Education Association, who teach and support nearly 50 million students in public schools across America, we urge you to vote NO on H.Con. Res. 14, the FY2025 budget resolution, which cuts the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Votes associated with this issue may be included in the NEA Report Card for the 119th Congress.
The House majority measure has proposed cuts of $230 billion in programs under the Agriculture Committee’s purview. These reductions will mean significant cuts and changes to SNAP, our nation’s first line of defense against hunger and most successful anti-hunger program. This will be devastating for millions of Americans who are already struggling to make ends meet at a time of high food costs and rising hunger.
SNAP helps more than 42 million people, 40% of whom are children. Eighty percent of recipients are in households with a child, an older adult, or a disabled individual, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. NEA estimates that 10% of education support professionals utilize SNAP and other food assistance programs, including 16% of school food-service professionals. They represent just some of the working households that receive SNAP benefits; most SNAP recipients who can work do work.
This bill:
- Dramatically restricts eligibility for SNAP by expanding the program’s work requirements to include a greater number of older adults, more households with younger children, and other vulnerable groups, putting millions at risk of hunger, including more than 4 million children;
- Shifts significant costs to states to administer the program and, for the first time, to provide a share of benefits, which will likely mean many states will be unable to meet residents’ needs and could cut some recipients off the program; and
- Cuts benefits for many households immediately by ending a simplification for calculating utility costs, and cuts future benefits for every single SNAP participant by freezing the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan except for inflation adjustments.
Together, these provisions will take away or reduce benefits for millions struggling to keep food on the table, including families with children.
Cutting SNAP would also threaten students’ access to school meals. Many children are automatically certified for school meals because their families receive SNAP benefits. This automatic certification allows school food-service professionals to spend less time on paperwork verifying income, and more on preparing and serving nutritious meals. Cuts and changes that force families out of the program put students’ access to free school meals at risk and require additional, burdensome, and inefficient paperwork for families and schools.
In addition to the specific concerns we have raised, we ask you to support amendments that protect and strengthen SNAP, and to oppose amendments that weaken the program, cut benefits, or cause recipients to fall off the program.
We appreciate that the bill does include an extension of the Secure Rural Schools program; Congress must deal with this critical extension, but not at the expense of such large cuts and changes to SNAP.
Our nation is at a turning point: America must decide whether to protect and strengthen food security for our most vulnerable citizens, or whether to extend tax cuts to the very rich at the expense of working families and students. We urge you to vote NO on H.Con. Res. 14.
Sincerely,
Marc Egan
Director of Government Relations
National Education Association
