WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania U.S. Senator John Fetterman on Monday led the full slate of Democrats on the U.S. Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition in sending a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) seeking information on impacts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that were passed in the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA).
The members urged USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to provide any metrics the agency used to determine net changes in enrollment to SNAP because of the FRA and the administration’s plans to implement the changes. They also sought information on how enrollment will change by specific demographic categories.
Despite preliminary reports that the work requirements may increase access to SNAP overall, Fetterman and the rest of the subcommittee maintain concerns that certain demographic groups may be harmed, even if total SNAP enrollment slightly increases.
“We remain concerned about the changes to eligibility and increases to work requirements overall. By their own admission, the individuals who proposed these new work requirements and changes to eligibility did so as an exercise to reduce both the overall cost of SNAP and the number of individuals enrolled,” the members wrote. “We are pleased at reports suggesting that this attempt to push more Americans into poverty failed, but as it stands, there are still information gaps on how the eligibility changes will impact food security for Americans by age, race, ethnicity, or gender.”
The letter asks four direct questions of USDA, seeking the net change in national SNAP enrollment after the FRA changes are implemented; whether USDA will release state-level assessments of the impacts of the changes; the breakdown of net changes to national enrollment of SNAP recipients by demographic categories; and USDA’s plan to communicate the changes in eligibility to the people affected.
Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Amy Klobuchar, D-MN; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; and Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. joined Fetterman in the letter.
