House Republicans Propose Taking Food Away from Latino Households

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is our nation’s most effective tool to fight hunger. SNAP helps people vulnerable to food insecurity afford the rising cost of food while providing room in their budgets for other necessities like housing and utilities. SNAP is a particularly important tool for Latino-headed households, which make up 20% of all SNAP households and are more than twice as likely as white-headed households to experience food insecurity.

Despite overwhelming evidence that SNAP lifts people out of poverty, conservative policymakers are pushing cuts that would put children, seniors, and other members of our communities at risk of losing some amount of food assistance. Dozens of House Republicans recently introduced a bill that threatens the benefits of 10 million people – about 1 in 4 SNAP participants—including 4 million children.

SNAP helps millions of children, low-income older adults, people with disabilities, and low-income veterans. It also serves millions of workers who struggle with low wages, inconsistent schedules, or temporary unemployment.

SNAP also helps prevent hardship during economic crises. During the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, when hunger was poised to soar, expanded SNAP benefits and other COVID relief measures prevented millions of people from going hungry.

SNAP improves immediate and long-term health outcomes for its recipients, particularly children; for them, SNAP means improved educational attainment, higher rates of school completion, and better jobs in adulthood.

And yet, conservative House policymakers continue to push harmful cuts to SNAP. Some have even suggested they will not pass a debt limit increase – which is needed to keep our economy stable – without cuts to programs like SNAP. At the same time, they’re pursuing tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and corporations. This isn’t right.

The bill from House Republicans would dramatically expand SNAP’s existing harsh work requirement to take food away from low-income parents with children over the age of six, older adults, and people living in areas that don’t have enough jobs.

Supporters of the bill justify these additional work requirements with the false assumption that SNAP participants do not work and must be compelled to do so. In fact, the majority of people receiving SNAP who can work, do so. Studies have shown that these requirements don’t help people get jobs or increase their earnings. Because of the challenges of the low-paid labor market, people often work multiple jobs but only get limited hours; lack of child care and paid sick and family leave means an illness or caretaking responsibilities can cause temporary unemployment; and ongoing labor market discrimination limits job opportunities for many workers. Work requirements do nothing to address these barriers, they just take food away from people.

SNAP feeds those in our community who are most vulnerable to hunger and should be improved, not gutted. As the debt ceiling and Farm Bill debates approach, we urge members of Congress to reject harmful cuts to SNAP that would push Latinos into poverty.

* Ty Jones Cox, Vice President for Food Assistance of the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities