The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps 260,000 Iowans put food on the table, is under attack right now in Washington DC.
Last night, Chairman Glenn “G.T.” Thompson of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture released budget reconciliation language that outlines over $290 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and already scheduled a mark-up vote for today (starting at 6:30pm Central) and tomorrow.
Chairman Thompson’s proposal would:
- shift at least 5% of the costs of benefits to states, and a greater share of administrative costs, leaving states on the hook for millions of dollars and incredibly hard decisions, leading to future cuts to SNAP and other vital basic needs programs
- expand work reporting requirements to older adults ages 55-64 and parents and caregivers of school-age children ages 7 and up, likely leading to tens of thousands of Iowans losing access to SNAP
- kick refugees and asylum seekers off SNAP, taking food away from thousands of vulnerable individuals and families—in FY 2023 there were 494,000 refugees and asylum seekers enrolled in SNAP, including 4,000 in the state of Iowa
- eliminate the SNAP Nutrition Education Program (SNAP-Ed), which supports a variety of nutrition education efforts in the state of Iowa
- freeze future re-evaluations of the Thrifty Food Plan, cutting increases to SNAP benefits and allocations for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP)
Each one of these proposals would be harmful on its own. Together, they would be absolutely devastating.
This is a crucial time for us to send a strong message to our lawmakers to protect funding for SNAP and reject proposals to cost share with states. Please contact Iowa’s Representatives who serve on the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture as soon as possible, and urge them to reject these harmful cuts to SNAP!
Now more than ever, support for basic needs programs is essential. SNAP is the best tool we have at our disposal to fight food insecurity. Too many Iowans are struggling to put food on the table.
For more details on the specific proposals included in Chairman Thompson’s budget proposal and their impact on Iowa, keep reading.
Shifting the Cost of Benefits Would be Devastating to States
Perhaps the most concerning proposal put forth to achieve this massive budget cut is cost sharing SNAP benefits with states. This would be a drastic restructuring of the program, leaving Iowa to come up with upwards of $27 million dollars annually starting in FY 2028 when the proposal would go into effect.
It would also increase the cost-share for states on administrative costs from 50% to 75%, leaving Iowa on the hook for an additional $15 million starting in FY 2026. This set of policies would place enormous strain on state budgets and force Iowa to make some extremely tough decisions.
The proposal would tie a state’s cost-share percentage to the state’s payment error rate (PER) for SNAP, with a minimum cost-share of 5%. The payment error rate measures how accurately state agencies determine SNAP eligibility and benefit amounts for those who participate in SNAP. Payment errors include both overpayments and underpayments of benefits. They do not represent program fraud.
Under the proposed text, states with payment error rates between 6-8% would face a cost-share on benefits of 15%; states with PERs between 8-10% would face a cost-share of 20%’ and states with PERs 10% and greater would face a cost-share of 25%.
It’s clear: this cost-shift would just shift the blame to states for massive, unpopular cuts to SNAP and other basic need programs.
This policy would lead to massive financial penalties to states with higher-than-average payment error rates, while offering no additional incentives for states to lower their PER beyond 5%. We’ve seen firsthand in Iowa that it takes more resources, not less, to turn the payment error rate around.
Iowa’s Payment Error Rate Case Study
Iowa is a perfect example of the current process to bring down payment error rates working effectively. The state received a $1.8 million fine from USDA in FY 2018 for having an excessive payment error rate, and Iowa was allowed to dedicate half the amount of the fine toward system improvements.
Since then, thanks to sustained work from the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services and investments from our legislature, Iowa's payment error rate (PER) is back on track, and we now have the 6th lowest PER in the nation. The way Iowa continues to bring its payment error rate down is through intentional investments: IT infrastructure upgrades, staff training, and team specializations.
Penalizing states with high payment error rates with greater cost burdens will not solve underlying issues with program administration, it will only make them worse.
Though a one-time $1.8 million fine (half of which went to IT infrastructure upgrades) may have been an effective "stick" for the state of Iowa, shifting $40+ million annually to the state would be a wrecking ball.
As the state of Iowa has shifted greater focus on reducing their PER while application processing timeliness (APT) suffers. Tying a cost-shift to the payment error rate could lead to people waiting for extended periods of time to receive the benefits they desperately need while their applications are painstakingly scrutinized.
If these cost-share proposals weren't concerning enough, they're paired with a policy that would put even greater risk on state budgets and lead to unintended consequences to people who rely on SNAP to feed themselves.
Another proposal included in the House Agriculture Budget would move the tolerance levels for payment errors to $0. This means that even a single dollar of under or overpayment of benefits could negatively contribute to a state's payment error rate, and therefore their share of SNAP benefit costs. This could lead to states directing all of their SNAP staffing resources (which will also be under threat by the increased administrative cost-share) to ensuring benefit accuracy at the expense of application processing timeliness and customer service. Pairing a state cost-shift on SNAP benefits with zero-tolerance for payment errors is a recipe for disaster.
It bears repeating, but the payment error rate does not represent fraud. Which means this cost-shift proposal is not about addressing waste, fraud, and abuse. It's about finding billions of dollars of cuts to SNAP to pay for tax breaks that largely benefit the wealthy and corporations, and doing so at the expense of state budgets and ultimately, people experiencing hunger and food insecurity.
Expanding Work Reporting Requirements Would Lead to Tens of Thousands of Iowans Losing Access to Food Assistance
Another proposal included in the House Agriculture Committee budget would expanding the three-month time limit for SNAP, also known as work reporting requirements, to older adults ages 55-64 and parents and caregivers of children 7 and up.
Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs) ages 18-54 are currently required to work at least 20 hours per week or face a three-month time limit for SNAP. That means that people who are subject to the work reporting requirement and unable to meet it can only access SNAP for three months every three years.
The research on work reporting requirements is clear: they don't improve employment or earnings, they just remove people from programs and leave them worse off than before.
According to analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the recent proposal to expand work reporting requirements would put 6 million Americans at risk of losing SNAP benefits, and would negatively impact 11 million total people on SNAP—1 in 4 program participants.
In Iowa, 10% of everyone on SNAP would be at risk of losing their benefits, and 1 in 4 households could see their benefits negatively impacted due to the new requirements.
This proposal won't lead more Iowans to finding employment. It will simply remove people from SNAP who struggle to comply with the new requirements and leave them worse off than before. Food insecurity will rise, and so will the number of people turning to food banks and food pantries across our state.
Eliminating SNAP-Ed Will Not Make America Healthy
The budget reconciliation text also proposes the elimination of the SNAP Nutrition Education Program (SNAP-Ed), calling it "ineffective and duplicative." States use SNAP-Ed funding in a number of ways to support nutrition education efforts for low-income residents. In Iowa, SNAP-Ed helps to support a variety of efforts, including:
- Pick a Better Snack, a program to increase fruit and vegetable intake with young children
- Fresh Conversations, a program to support healthy aging and independent living in older adults ages 60+
- Buy. Eat. Live Healthy, a series of classes to support individuals and households in making healthy grocery choices on a tight budget
If the goal of this administration is to "Make America Healthy Again," these types of programs would seem like natural opportunities for increased investment, not wholesale elimination. But again, this is about cutting for cutting's sake, not actually improving the program.
Freezing Updates to the Thrifty Food Plan Would Cut Future Benefits
One proposal in the House Agriculture budget that has long been discussed is freezing future re-evaluations to the Thrifty Food Plan. This would still allow for annual increases to SNAP benefits based on inflation, but would prevent re-evaluations from occurring every five years to adjust for other changes that impact household food purchasing trends.
This would cut future benefit increases to SNAP and allocations for The Emergency Food Assistance Plan (TEFAP), both of which use the Thrifty Food Plan in their funding formulas.
Based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, freezing TFP updates outside of inflation adjustments would lead to $201 million in cuts to SNAP benefits for Iowans over fiscal years 2027-2034.
Iowans need a Thrifty Food Plan that continues to stay up to date with the times, not cuts to future benefit amounts.
Do you have questions about any of these budget proposals? Reach out to us at iowahungercoalition@gmail.com.