FARM BILL UPDATE

The House passed a compromise version of the Farm Bill on Wednesday; the Senate is expected to act with the next few weeks. The agreement reauthorizes SNAP for 5 years, tightens some existing policies, and gives states new authority to test innovative ways to boost employment and earnings among SNAP households.  Specifically, it:

▪      Clarifies certain SNAP eligibility rules, for example, ensuring that lottery winners and affluent college students are not eligible. 

▪      Strengthens SNAP program integrity through new measures to combat trafficking of benefits by retailers and recipients.

▪      Tests innovative state strategies to connect more SNAP participants to employment, by including a pilot project and rigorous evaluation of the impact on participants’ employment and earnings.

▪      Improves access to healthy food options by requiring stores to stock more perishable foods and testing new ways for clients to use their SNAP benefit card (for example, by swiping cards on mobile devices at farmers’ markets) that could attract more retailers with healthy options.

The bill includes one substantial SNAP benefit cut, which would shrink benefits for about 850,000 households in 17 states by an average of $90 a month while saving the government $8.6 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.  It sets a $20 minimum for state “heat and eat” allocations, which these states now use to stretch the benefit formula in a way that enables them not only to simplify paperwork for many SNAP households, but also to boost benefits for some by assuming they pay several hundred dollars a month in heating or cooling utility costs that they do not actually incur.  Both the Senate and House farm bills sought to curtail this practice, viewing it as a weakness in program rules that Congress did not intend.

Finally, the bill increases funding for food banks through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) by $205 million.

 

Source: Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 1/28/14, Farm Bill; Politico, 1/29/14, Farm Bill II; Christian Science Monitor, 1/28/14, Farm Bill III