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Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Free meals for students could be impacted by federal budget cuts
Mar. 12—MASSENA — More than 31,000 north country students could potentially be impacted by proposed changes to the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), the program that allows districts to offer free meals to students. House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, has proposed $12 billion in cuts to school breakfast and lunch for the reconciliation, and the House Education and Workforce Committee, which has jurisdiction over school meals and the other federal nutrition programs, has been directed to cut funding for programs within its jurisdiction by $330 billion. In addition to the CEP cut, proposals include requiring schools to verify the household income of all families approved for free or reduced-price meals rather than using a sampling method. CEP is a non-pricing meal service option for schools and school districts in low-income areas. CEP allows the nation's highest-poverty schools and districts to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications. This allows all students in those schools to eat breakfast and lunch at no charge regardless of their family's income. Schools that adopt CEP are reimbursed using a formula based on the percentage of students categorically eligible for free meals based on their participation in other specific means-tested programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The proposal would increase the CEP eligibility threshold for schools from 25% to 60% of students identified as receiving benefits. In the 2023 — 2024 school year, one out of every two schools that operated the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) participated in CEP, and more than 23 million children had access to healthy school meals at no charge through CEP. Now, according to the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the proposal would force more than 24,000 schools nationwide to drop CEP. "Congress should be making it easier, not harder, for children to get the meals they need to learn and thrive," Crystal FitzSimons, interim president of FRAC said in a statement. "Community eligibility is a proven success, ensuring tens of millions of students have access to nutritious meals while easing burdens on families and schools. Instead of cutting community eligibility, lawmakers should be expanding it to allow more high-need schools and districts to adopt the option." "As families struggle to keep up with the rising cost of food, Republicans in Congress are looking at making it harder for millions of children in families with low incomes to get free meals at school. Worse yet, the proposed cuts would be part of legislation that would give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people and businesses," Zoë Neuberger, a senior fellow at CBPP said in a statement. "Congress should instead focus on removing red tape for schools and families so parents can afford groceries and children can get the meals they need for healthy development." The two groups released state-by-state fact sheets detailing how proposed cuts to CEP would worsen childhood hunger, hurt struggling families, and create unnecessary burdens for schools and districts. Their list of schools details how many children attend and could be impacted if Congress increases the eligibility threshold to 60% of students identified as receiving benefits. That includes 13,123 students in Jefferson County, 4,119 students in Lewis County, and 14,270 students in St. Lawrence County. JEFFERSON COUNTY Alexandria — 477 students Belleville Henderson — 471 students Carthage — 3,132 students General Brown — 1,441 students Indian River — 3,677 students LaFargeville — 523 students Lyme — 344 students Sackets Harbor — 419 students South Jefferson — 1,820 students Thousand Islands — 819 Watertown — N/A LEWIS COUNTY Beaver River — 874 students Copenhagen — 491 students Harrisville — 341 students Lowville — 1,353 students South Lewis — 1,060 students ST. LAWRENCE COUNTY Canton — 1,060 students Clifton-Fine — 265 students Colton-Pierrepont — 385 students Edwards-Knox — 533 students Gouverneur — 1,432 students Hammond — 244 students Hermon-DeKalb — 431 students Heuvelton — 644 students Lisbon — 566 students Madrid-Waddington — 640 students Massena — 2,423 students Morristown — 327 students Norwood-Norfolk — 962 students Ogdensburg — 1,581 students Parishville-Hopkinton — 353 students Potsdam — 1,471 students St. Lawrence — 953 students
CBS News
03-03-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Study shows the consequences of budget cuts to SNAP in Minnesota
As lawmakers in Washington consider a budget proposal to slash taxes, advocates in Minnesota are warning of the potential for devastating consequences for hundreds of thousands in the state. The non-partisan Food Research and Action Center says more than 458,000 Minnesotans rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits to put food on the table. The non-profit says SNAP also offers nine meals to every one that a local pantry can provide. The FRAC study also found that among the Minnesota households relying on SNAP benefits: 45% are with children 49% are with a person with a disability 35% have older adults in them 10,989 veterans rely on SNAP The CEO of Second Harvest Heartland, Allison O'Toole, says she fears the impact of potential SNAP cuts during the budget talks in Washington. "We've seen food insecurity rates skyrocket in the last 4 years. We're at an all-time high right now," said O'Toole. "We are in a hunger crisis already. If these proposals are enacted, it'll be catastrophic." To do her part, O'Toole is flying to Washington, D.C. this week to meet with U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and the House Committee on Agriculture to advocate for hunger relief policy. "I'm making a special trip [on Monday] because it's a critical time," said O'Toole. While cuts are not official yet, O'Toole hopes people will give money, food donations or service hours to Minnesota food shelves to prepare for what's a possibility. "This is a solvable issue and if there's one state that can do it, it is ours. We just need everyone to join forces to make sure we can do it," said O'Toole.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
2025 farm bill: Advocates prioritize anti-hunger policies while Republicans push budget cuts
By eliminating barriers to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, Congress can make it easier for millions of low-income rural Americans to put food on the table, according to Salaam Bhatti of the Food Research & Action Center, or FRAC, a nonprofit policy and research organization. But GOP members of the House Agriculture Committee are pushing forbudget cuts to the Farm Bill, the legislation that authorizes food stamps and a variety of other nutrition and agriculture programs. "We know that 15.4% of households in rural areas had experienced food insecurity in 2023," Bhatti told The Daily Yonder in a phone interview. "So that's a significant number." SNAP is the first line of defense against hunger, according to a report from Jordan Baker, senior communications manager at FRAC. The last Farm Bill was signed into law by Trump in 2018 during his first term. Since then, the legislation has been in limbo, awaiting updates until September 2025, when Congress is scheduled to vote on new legislation. Bhatti said nutrition advocates are pushing for three major changes in the 2025 Farm Bill to address food insecurity in rural areas. SNAP allowances are based on estimations of the cost of groceries for a given year, something the USDA Food and Nutrition Service refers to as the Thrifty Food Plan. According to the November 2024 Thrifty Food Plan, the estimated monthly cost of groceries for a family of four was $983.80 (SNAP allowances can vary by household size, gender, and age). The Thrifty Food Plan estimates the cost of groceries for an individual or household, then uses that estimation to determine the maximum SNAP allotments a person can receive. Congress updates the Thrifty Food Plan every five years to keep SNAP allotments up to date with market prices. Bhatti said that protecting funding for the Thrifty Food Plan will be important for fighting food insecurity in rural America. In 2022, an estimated 2.5 million rural households relied on SNAP to subsidize their grocery bill. That's about 14% of all rural households, slightly higher than the 11% of metropolitan residents who rely on SNAP. About one million households that rely on SNAP are families with children, a group that makes up about 22% of the rural population. To add to that, every SNAP dollar spent in a rural community has an outsized effect on economic activity compared to metropolitan counties. "For every SNAP dollar, there's an economic impact of $1.54 cents," said Bhatti. "But that is even more impactful within rural parts of the country because a lot of our farmland is in rural America. SNAP is an economic investment." SNAP drives economic activity in rural areas primarily by supporting local grocery stores, providing money that, without SNAP, "is going to really hurt [the store's] bottom line," Bhatti said. Those SNAP dollars spill over into agriculture and food processing, industries which have a large economic base in rural areas, according to a USDA report. Many GOP lawmakers want to cut back on its funding. In May of 2024, Republican chair of the House Agriculture Committee Glenn Thompson released his proposed farm bill that would make it harder for the USDA to keep the Thrifty Food Plan up to date with potential increases in the cost of healthy food. "There's an attempt to cut SNAP benefits over the next 10 years by $30 billion," Bhatti said of Thompson's proposed legislation. "So that would be … an enormous negative impact because a lot of people came out to vote because groceries are unaffordable." Thompson's proposal is a response to the Biden Administration's updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, which increased SNAP benefits by 30%. Under current SNAP guidelines, an individual can only receive three months of SNAP benefits every three years without meeting the program's work requirements. The Food and Nutrition Service, or FNS, the department of the USDA that oversees SNAP, requires able-bodied recipients between 16 and 59 years old to work or participate in a workforce program for at least 80 hours per month to continue receiving benefits after that three month window. "We want to eliminate the time limits that are disproportionately impacting rural residents and other underserved populations," Bhatti said. "There's just not enough good paying jobs in rural America, so to force them into low paying work really puts them into a cycle of poverty." Previous Daily Yonder reporting demonstrated that living in a poor job market may be more burdensome for rural residents compared to their urban counterparts. That's because fewer households in rural America have reliable internet access and transportation compared to urban and suburban residents. Rurality can therefore make it harder for people already struggling to meet SNAP's work requirements. "We also want to repeal the lifetime ban for individuals with felony drug convictions, which affects a lot of families trying to rebuild in rural areas," Bhatti said. Living in a rural community can exacerbate existing challenges that felons face in finding employment and meeting work requirements. Rural areas also have limited access to reentry programs compared to urban centers, a deficit that can make it harder for formerly incarcerated people to get back on their feet, according to a report from the Rural Justice Collaborative. The initial push to ban people with felony drug convictions from SNAP was based on an allegation that many SNAP recipients illegally trade their benefits for things like guns and drugs. Data shows that SNAP fraud accounts for less than 2% of total allotments, with most instances involving retailers rather than individuals trading benefits for drugs. The practice of banning people with felony drug convictions from participating in SNAP began in 1996 when President Bill Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, or PRWORA. About half of rural Americans live in a state that has either a temporary or lifetime ban for individuals with felony drug convictions, according to a Daily Yonder analysis of PRWORA data. "There's a bipartisan agreement to get rid of [the ban], which is really great," said Bhatti. This story was produced by The Daily Yonder and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
More than 280,000 Ohio kids would be impacted by proposed national school meal program cuts
Students getting their l lunch at a primary school. (Photo by Amanda Mills/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) As the federal government looks at ways to cut costs and fund Trump-administration measures, a congressional committee is considering a cut that could take billions from school breakfast and lunch programs. That cut could impact more than 280,000 students in Ohio alone, and 728 schools in the state, according to data from the Food Research & Action Center. FRAC identified this loss from a proposal being discussed by the Republican-led U.S. House Ways and Means Committee — membership of which includes Ohio Reps. Mike Carey and Max Miller — as part of upcoming budget reconciliation in the Capitol. The proposal would chop $3 billion from school breakfast and lunch programs. 'Taking away this important and effective way for local schools to offer breakfast and lunch at no charge to all their students would increase hunger in the classroom, reintroduce unnecessary paperwork for families and schools, increase school meal debt and bring stigma back into the cafeteria,' according to FRAC senior child nutrition policy analyst Erin Hysom and interim child nutrition programs and policy director Alexis Bylander. The proposal would directly impact schools that don't fall under the Community Eligibility Provision, a service based out of the federal National School Lunch Program, that serves districts in high poverty areas, allowing them to distribute meals at no cost to the students. Schools are deemed eligible for CEP based on their participation with other programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). According to a summary of the proposal among a list of possible budget reconciliation plans obtained by Politico, the CEP eligibility would be raised from the previous level of schools with 40% participation in the other federal programs to 60%. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Hysom and Bylander say the new proposal would reduce eligibility for CEP, making more than 24,000 schools nationwide and 12 million children no longer eligible, including the more than 280,000 Ohio children impacted. The advocacy group Children's Defense Fund-Ohio said the loss from this proposal would impact more Ohio children 'than there are residents in the city of Toledo, Ohio's fourth-largest city.' 'As I've said before, free meals can help our students thrive mentally, socially and physically, especially those whose parents are currently trying to do all they can to support their children while juggling their responsibilities at work and fighting inflationary costs at home,' Dr. John Stanford, state director of CDF-Ohio, told the Capital Journal. Stanford also pointed to public opinion and a 2024 Republican research firm poll that showed a majority of Ohioans support universal free school breakfast and lunch programs for public schools. 'So why would our lawmakers on Capitol Hill look to pass federal legislation that goes against the wishes of all Ohioans and effectively reduces access to free meals for students by increasing bureaucratic paperwork for school administrators,' Stanford asked. A 2023 report from the CDF-Ohio showed 1 in 6 children live in a household that experiences hunger and more than 1 in 3 children who live in households with food insecurity already don't qualify for school meals. Both Stanford and FRAC said the changes proposed by the Ways and Means Committee would create further opportunities for students to 'fall through the cracks' by requiring proof of income to apply for free and reduced meals. The meal programs had already seen decreases in participation, due to the lapsing of COVID-19 pandemic waivers of school meals costs. Ohio saw a 14% drop in average lunch participation due to the loss of the waivers. 'We need our lawmakers to be completely focused on helping children and not creating unnecessary bureaucratic red tape for an evidence-based, best practices program that's working,' Stanford added. 'This proposal would achieve the opposite.' The state used its own budget in 2023 to make meals free for those who qualified for reduced-price meals, along with those who qualified for no-cost meals, but didn't go the distance on universal school meals. The state is set to pass another operating budget this year that could include the discussion again, with a new House Speaker and Senate President at the helm. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
