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Boston Globe
29-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
How proposed federal SNAP cuts would harm New Hampshire
Advertisement Right now, the federal government pays for 100 percent of the state's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as 'food stamps' – $154 million in fiscal year 2024, according to the Get N.H. Morning Report A weekday newsletter delivering the N.H. news you need to know right to your inbox. Enter Email Sign Up People with low income who are eligible get a benefits card, and they can use money loaded onto the card toward the cost of groceries each month. The bill would require states to pay 5 percent to 25 percent of those benefits, and states that made more errors, such as overpayments or underpayments, would have to pay a higher percentage. Advertisement In 2023, New Hampshire's error rate was 12.53, according to the But Laura Milliken, executive director at New Hampshire Hunger Solutions, said it's very unlikely New Hampshire would be able to come up with that kind of money. 'There's no question that there would be cuts,' she said. Milliken's organization estimates that tens of thousands of Granite Staters would lose access to SNAP if the federal proposal is approved. The federal spending bill would also require states to pay 75 percent of the administrative costs of SNAP, up from 50 percent. In 2023, the overall cost of administering SNAP in New Hampshire was $22 million, according to the 'It's just so disturbing at a time when the cost of living is squeezing us all,' Milliken said of the proposed federal cuts. 'SNAP has been our country's first line of defense against hunger for 60 years. We should be strengthening those programs, not taking them away.' This article first appeared in Globe NH | Morning Report, our free newsletter focused on the news you need to know about New Hampshire, including great coverage from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles from other places. If you'd like to receive it via e-mail Monday through Friday, Amanda Gokee can be reached at
Boston Globe
15-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Amid Trump administration cuts, hunger is rising as charities struggle to keep up
Amid sweeping federal cuts, the charitable food system is straining to meet the need, as more people seek help and less money is available to assist them. And private philanthropy isn't enough to fill the gap. Advertisement Experts warn high food costs have driven up demand, at the same time that federal cuts have hobbled the nonprofits and charities that have long provided free food to people in poverty struggling to get enough to eat. And advocates fear the gaps could widen if Get N.H. Morning Report A weekday newsletter delivering the N.H. news you need to know right to your inbox. Enter Email Sign Up 'There's no way the charitable food system is going to be able to pick up the slack,' said Laura Milliken, executive director of New Hampshire Hunger Solutions. 'They're already completely overburdened.' While private philanthropy can address emergency food needs, she said, it isn't designed to lift people out of poverty and solve hunger. Plus, money is tight right now. Inflation and the economic uncertainty around tariffs are also impacting the philanthropists and foundations that give to charitable causes, as they field urgent requests for funding from all angles. Advertisement 'We are all looking for that funding,' said Elsy Cipriani, executive director of the New Hampshire Food Bank, the state's only food bank. 'I think it is putting some funders in a very difficult and challenging situation between deciding which cause to support.' With decreased funding, the Food Bank is trying to do more with less, Cipriani said. About 10 percent of New Hampshire residents don't have enough to eat and don't know where their next meal will come from, a While Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts offer A patchwork of organizations provide free food to people in need in New Hampshire, including food pantries, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and senior centers. About 400 of those agencies receive on average 60 percent of their food from the New Hampshire Food Bank. But this year, the Food Bank said, it has to shrink some efforts, after the US Department of Agriculture about $300,000 per year over the next three years of money for purchasing healthy local food. Advertisement 'The negative effect of that was immediate,' Cipriani said. Even if fund-raising efforts succeed, the program won't be restored, Cipriani said: The food bank needs that money available for other operating costs as it prepares for future cuts. An additional $1 million in food orders placed by social service agencies from May to July have also been canceled by USDA, according to Jeanne Agri, CEO of the Belknap Merrimack Community Action Program. The cancelled orders were placed through the federal programs such as Reducing those food supplies means more people must turn to the Food Bank to make up the difference, Cipriani said. But it's unclear where the funding to meet that need will come from. And in the meantime, the cost of food continues to rise. Cipriani said one provider in Canada is now charging 10 percent more because of tariffs. She anticipates prices for other items, such as canned food, will rise because of tariffs on aluminum. Higher prices will make food insecurity worse, she said. 'The first people to be affected are the people that we serve,' she said. 'They always struggle between the choice of paying rent, buying food, buying clothing for the children, and very often, one of the things that they do is they don't buy as much food as they need because there are other priorities.' It's a problem that private philanthropists are working to address through different programs around the state. Advertisement With a $225,000 grant from the Maine-based grocery chain Hannaford, New Hampshire Hunger Solutions is working to encourage more children to eat breakfast at school, including at the Concord School District, where the school provides grab-and-go breakfasts for students. Right now, only 20 percent to 25 percent of students there do so, according to Donna Reynolds, the school nutrition director. Traci Pratt, the kitchen manager at Broken Ground School in Concord, shows one of the grab-and-go breakfasts the school is now offering students. She said the program to encourage more children to participate in breakfast is going well, even if it's off to a slow start. "We're getting more and more each day," she said. (Amanda Gokee/Globe Staff) Amanda Gokee/Globe Staff She's hoping increased participation can alleviate hunger and help students succeed. But because the federal government reimburses the school district for most of the cost of the meals, Reynolds said, she fears additional cuts. 'Any cut in funding for that is very alarming,' she said. For Hannaford, it's a common sense investment, said Sherri Stevens, community impact manager for the supermarket chain. 'If our communities are healthy, our business will be healthy,' she said. Hannaford also donates food at risk of going to waste to hunger relief organizations. According to the supermarket, it donated 26 million pounds of food in 2023. Healthy food and snacks are available for students during lunchtime at the Broken Ground School in Concord. (Amanda Gokee/Globe Staff) Amanda Gokee/Globe Staff New Hampshire Hunger Solutions is touting the success of the breakfast challenge: Kennett Middle School in Conway, N.H., increased breakfast participation by 53.2 percent this year. But those accomplishments come as advocates brace for even deeper cuts that could affect the most vulnerable. Proposals in Congress to slash Governor Kelly A. Ayotte said she would fight for federal SNAP funding, and she supports state funding for food insecurity efforts. But some funding in her budget proposal for food assistance was cut by Advertisement 'The state needs to do its part to the extent we can,' she said. In New Hampshire, SNAP serves Nonprofit initiatives, such as pop-up food pantries run by the United Way of Greater Nashua, are only a supplement to food assistance programs such as SNAP, according to Michael Apfelberg, the organization's president. Apfelberg said they began offering pantries in 2020 to address food deserts, and they now serve 20 to 50 people per day at five locations around Nashua. 'Even though I feel like we do a great job, at the end of the day, we're the tip of the iceberg,' Apfelberg said. 'The iceberg is the federal government.' 'If that melts,' he warned, 'we're all going to be drowning.' Amanda Gokee can be reached at
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Efforts to expand school lunch assistance facing opposition in House
The free and reduced-price lunch program allows students in families who make at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level — $41,795 for a household of four — to get free breakfasts and lunches at school. (Getty Images) A yearslong effort by Democrats to expand access to free and reduced-price meals at public schools appears to be facing another uphill battle this year, as Republicans have raised concerns about the cost to the state. The House Education Funding Committee voted on party lines last week to retain or recommend killing three separate bills that would address school lunch payments. The committee recommended killing House Bill 583, which would require New Hampshire to sign up for Medicaid Direct Certification, allowing school districts to automatically enroll income-eligible families into the free and reduced-price lunch program using state Medicaid data. Currently, families that qualify — those making up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level — must apply, and not all eligible families do. The committee also voted against a bill that would make that application easier. House Bill 646, which the committee recommended be killed, would require that all school districts make the application for free and reduced-lunch available online. And the committee retained a bill, House Bill 665, that would dramatically expand how many students in the state could qualify for free and reduced-price lunch — by raising the income limit from 185 percent of the federal poverty level to 300 percent. Retaining the bill means it will not proceed to the House floor and will be kept by the committee until 2026 for further tweaks and discussion. One advocate for the bill expressed frustration afterward. 'We were crushed,' said Laura Milliken, executive director of New Hampshire Hunger Solutions, an advocacy organization, in an interview Monday. 'It's clear to us that there's a lot of food insecurity happening in New Hampshire right now, and these bills specifically address child food insecurity. And the committee was not at all interested in any of the bills.' Milliken cited the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, from September 2024, which suggests 39 percent of children live in households that report having insufficient food. That designation includes 'those who had enough food but not always the kind wanted, those who sometimes did not have enough to eat, and those that often did not have enough to eat,' according to the census. The free and reduced-price lunch program allows students in families who make at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level — $41,795 for a household of four — to get free breakfasts and lunches at school. Those from families making between 130 and 185 percent of the poverty level can receive breakfast and lunch at a reduced price — typically about 40 cents per lunch. The program can make a difference: The full prices for lunches tend to be about $4 to $5 per meal. Democrats and anti-hunger advocates say New Hampshire should ensure that all students who qualify for the free and reduced-price lunch program are getting it. Many students who could receive it do not, sometimes because their parents forget to send in an application and sometimes because the student feels stigma and chooses not to submit it. Requiring the application process to be online, which some school districts do voluntarily, would allow more families to sign up, while entering Medicaid Direct Certification, a federal pilot program, would eliminate the need to apply altogether. But Republicans voiced objections to those approaches. Rep. Rick Ladd, a Haverhill Republican and the chairman of the committee, noted that schools can already choose to provide online applications; forcing them to do so would trample on local control, he said. 'My school district is doing this currently without the need for the legislation,' he said. 'I know others in the state are doing the same.' And joining Medicaid Direct Certification, which Democrats have proposed doing since 2022, could have budget impacts to the state, Republicans said. New Hampshire's school funding formula requires the state to give school districts additional money for each student enrolled in the free and reduced-price lunch program. Adding more students by automatically enrolling them could have immediate budgetary impacts, Republicans say. Democrats countered that signing up the kids would simply give an accurate accounting of how many low-income students are in each school district, which would ensure that those districts are getting the state aid they are supposed to be getting. Analysis by the state Department of Education suggests that around 10,000 additional students might be enrolled in the free or reduced-price lunch program if the state were to adopt the program. 'It provides the state with an accurate number, not a make-believe number, when it comes to identifying the number of kids from low-income backgrounds that attend our public schools,' said Rep. Dave Luneau, a Hopkinton Democrat. Similar bills have been struck down by Republicans over concerns about the impact to the state's Education Trust Fund. Anticipating those objections, Luneau proposed an amendment in which the state would enter Medicaid Direct Certification but would delay the funding by two years. 'So the amendment makes that budget neutral, and why do we want to make it budget neutral? Because we feel that the policy is very important to make sure that we're identifying … students who are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch as 43 other states currently do it.' Rep. Daniel Popovici-Muller, a Windham Republican, disagreed with that approach. 'I don't think that something that's not good policy adopted as is will be good policy because we delay the massive financial impact for two years,' he said. The votes are not final; each recommendation will be taken up by the full House in the coming weeks. But they come as part of a long string of defeats for Democrats on this issue. In 2022, advocates pushed then-Gov. Chris Sununu to apply to join Medicaid Direct Certification as an executive action; Sununu said he wanted buy-in from the Legislature first. Since then, bills to do so or expand student lunch assistance have fallen short. For Rep. Hope Damon, a Croydon Democrat, the benefits of increasing meal availability for children go beyond the lunch hour. 'It is not fiscally responsible to do this,' she said, referring to the recommendation to kill the bill, 'because children with food insecurity are twice as likely to receive special ed services, twice as likely to repeat a grade, have increased hyperactivity and difficulty focusing, and are twice as likely to have behavioral issues that lead to suspension, so they cost more money when they're not fed. It's unconscionable that we can't figure out a way to go forward with this.' Milliken noted two Senate bills also intended to increase meals to children. Senate Bill 204 would raise the free lunch threshold from 130 percent of the federal poverty level to 200 percent, and require the state and school districts to split the additional cost 50/50; the Senate is likely to amend that bill to make it 'opt-in' and allow districts to decide whether to participate. And Senate Bill 205 would require all school districts to offer breakfast in addition to lunch. Currently, districts are mandated only to provide one meal and breakfast is optional. Milliken said school districts have been ramping up their own efforts to encourage applications to the free and reduced-price lunch program, but that state law is necessary to close the gap. 'Families are struggling … because of the increase in housing prices and child care prices and food price prices,' she said. 'So I think there are a lot of people who are feeling the pinch, but that it's particularly hard on low-income working families.'
