By Barb Arland-Fye
Editor
A Catholic in our diocese with developmental disabilities receives $151 a month in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP), which does just what the title implies — supplements the nourishment that he, like all human beings, requires to live. SNAP covers about two weeks of groceries and he purchases the basics: meat, fruits, vegetables and breakfast food.
He is one of 266,000 people in Iowa enrolled in SNAP, a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS), which the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services manages in our state. SNAP has its roots in the Food Stamp Act, which President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law 60 years ago. SNAP has bridged the hunger gap for several generations of Americans and that is cause for celebration!
However, SNAP faces challenges that must be resolved in a timely, compassionate manner for the sake of the 44.2 million people (12.6 % of the U.S. population) who depend on SNAP to help put food on the table. In a statement released Sept. 4, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that 13.5% of U.S. households (18 million) struggled with food availability, quality or variety at least some time in 2023. He described SNAP as “our nation’s most powerful anti-hunger tool,” but some members of Congress aim to cut costs by changing SNAP’s funding formula in the Farm Bill. Blunting this anti-hunger tool would come at the expense of SNAP’s vulnerable recipients — children, women and men.
In Iowa, they are among 1 in 9 Iowans facing hunger and 1 in 6 children going to bed hungry, according to the 2022 Feeding America Map and Meal Gap study. “Hunger is a complex issue and it takes a variety of programs to help those experiencing food insecurity,” Iowa Food Bank Association Executive Director Linda Gorkow said in an Iowa Hunger Coalition e-news release.
“The food banks serving Iowa salute the impact of SNAP for families in Iowa as 40.7% of households receiving SNAP benefits have children.”
Proposals “to cut food assistance — including SNAP in the next Farm Bill — are misguided and out of step with the reality working families face,” Vilsack said in his Sept. 4 statement. The proposed $1.5 trillion Farm Bill, which faces reauthorization every five years, is set to expire Sept. 30. A divided Congress may pass a continuing resolution instead, kicking the can down the road.
One of the major sticking points is a provision in the House bill that rescinds recent updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, which the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities describes as “a market basket of food.” Its cost “represents the minimum amount of money USDA estimates a household needs to purchase a frugal but nutritious diet …”
Catholic leaders say the House proposal would “act as a cut to future SNAP benefits for the millions of people who rely on the program for basic nutrition, estimated at over $30 billion in the next decade…” House Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson and other bill supporters say the SNAP revision amounts to correcting the current administration’s overreach in 2021.
SNAP does what Catholic Social Teaching instructs us to do, put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first. “As the bishops have said, food is a basic requirement of the common good as it sustains life itself,” ICC Executive Director Tom Chapman said. Catholic Charities’ programs and those of other nonprofits “cannot make up the difference in federal aid.”
The U.S. bishops asked us four months ago to urge our members of Congress to protect SNAP in the Farm Bill by supporting a petition on the USCCB website. Its shelf life remains current. Please go to this link (https://tinyurl.com/5a3jdc5p) to support the petition.
Lastly, we need to monitor pending implementation of an Iowa law passed in 2023 that requires the state to establish a new asset test and income/identity verification system for public benefits. Of special concern is the bill’s maximum of 10 days to respond to the state about an income discrepancy that disqualifies the applicant. That short window could adversely affect a number of SNAP recipients. The Catholic man with a developmental disability, for instance, lost his benefits for at least a couple of months because a renewal notice was sent to an old address. Hunger can’t wait.
Barb Arland-Fye, Editor
arland-fye@davenportdiocese.org
