Proposals by the Trump administration to change eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) could have a widespread, adverse impact on Connecticut residents, state politicians and service providers warned during a roundtable discussion in Hartford Thursday.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has already finalized a rule — which goes into effect on April 1 —revising work requirements for SNAP eligibility, which the state Department of Social Services estimates will eliminate food assistance benefits for roughly 26,000 Connecticut residents. SNAP is the federal food entitlement program that was formerly known as food stamps.
The rule tightening work requirements is estimated to save almost $8 billion over five years, according to the Department of Agriculture.
Now, two additional proposals threaten to push tens of thousands of Connecticut residents off of SNAP, reduce benefits for about half of the state’s recipients, and limit some public schools’ ability to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students.
“The Trump administration is proposing a series of draconian changes that would rob from Connecticut the flexibility that we use to try to make sure that every family in desperate need — not just families in need — gets access to SNAP benefits,” Sen. Chris Murphy said at the headquarters of the Community Renewal Team (CRT), a Hartford-based antipoverty agency.
In Connecticut, approximately 368,000 individuals in more than 213,000 households currently receive SNAP assistance, according to DSS. Under the previous rule, states could waive a three-month limit on SNAP benefits for able-bodied adults without dependents, a time limit which included areas with unemployment as low as 2.5 percent. The new rule raises the minimum unemployment rate to 6 percent.
An additional proposal involving how utility costs are factored into SNAP eligibility could decrease benefits for about 45% of the state’s recipients, Murphy said. Currently, Connecticut is able to adjust for the state’s high energy costs when making eligibility determinations, but the proposed rule would set a national standard for utility allowances.
“It takes about $5 million out of the Connecticut economy writ large,” Murphy said of the proposal. “These SNAP benefits go right back into the economy. They’re not being squirreled away in a savings account; they are being spent immediately.”
Another proposed rule would limit broad-based categorical eligibility, a policy which expands SNAP eligibility to other assistance programs. The state currently allows residents who earn up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level to enroll in SNAP, but the proposed rule would reduce that maximum to 130 percent (roughly $33,475 for a family of four). If that rule is implemented, approximately 36,300 individuals in Connecticut would lose SNAP benefits, according to DSS.
The change could also reduce some public schools’ ability to provide free meals to all students, said Robin Lamott Sparks, executive director of the End Hunger Connecticut!, a Hartford-based nonprofit.
“It’s the children that no one expects that will really be affected, not just the families on SNAP,” Lamott Sparks said.
In Connecticut public schools, if at least 40% of students receive food assistance, schools or entire districts can apply for a Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), a national program which allows schools to serve free breakfast and lunch to all students. But under the proposed SNAP rule, eligibility for food assistance is expected to decrease, which in turn would impact direct certification for meal eligibility.
“We know that not just school lunch but school breakfast in particular has a significant impact on kids’ ability to learn, grasp complicated concepts, and retain that information,” John Frassinelli, chief of the state Department of Education’s Nutrition, Family Services and Adult Education Bureau, said in a phone interview Thursday.
Other community service providers at the roundtable discussion emphasized that while the economy appears strong, low-income residents in Hartford continue to struggle for basic necessitates like food, housing, and heat.
Rosalind Copeland, senior case manager at CRT, said that the organization’s waiting rooms are flooded with people panicked by energy shutoff notices.
“It always come down to, ‘Well, do I put food in my house or do I pay my energy bill? Do I put gas in my car so I can get to work to continue to provide, or do I pay my energy bill?'” Copeland said.
More people have been calling for eviction prevention than ever, CRT president Lena Rodriguez added, and local shelters are at capacity.
“Even in this time of low unemployment and a supposedly strong economy, we have more and more people who are food insecure on a daily basis, and an inadequate capacity to provide,” Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said.
Murphy told the room that he will push to oppose the proposed changes to SNAP eligibility.
“We need 50 votes in the Senate to be able to overturn a regulatory change like this, and we’re going to try to find a handful of Republican votes to get that done,” he said.
But after the meeting, he admitted that it would be difficult to secure a victory.
“There is probably some bipartisan support,” he said, “but Trump does a pretty good job of squelching Republican opposition to his policies, so I’m not optimistic.”
This article was updated to clarify the relationship between changes to SNAP eligibility and free meal programs in public schools.
