Fighting to protect food assistance for Hawaiʻi’s working families and seniors
Late last month, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed a rule that would take away Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from an estimated 3 million people in the U.S.
The USDA wants to restrict a policy known as “broad-based categorical eligibility,” which is used by 40 states, including Hawaiʻi. Hawaiʻi uses this waiver to expand the income cutoffs for SNAP elegibility. This means that working families don’t abruptly lose much of their benefits when they earn slightly more money—what’s known as a “benefits cliff.” When this happens, a higher income can actually mean fewer resources overall, thereby creating disincentives for pursuing a better job.
Categorical eligibility also allows people to be eligible for SNAP even when they have certain assets, like a house or retirement savings, so that families, seniors, and people with disabilities aren’t at risk of losing their SNAP benefits if they save a little bit of money.
The USDA is currently accepting public comment through September 23. Officials must read every comment that is submitted, so it’s important that they hear from all of us on why this this rule is harmful and should be opposed.
You can comment directly through the Federal Register, or you can visit Feeding America, the Center for American Progress, and the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC)’s digital comment platforms, all of which have talking points you can use to make this process as easy as possible.
Hawaiʻi Impact
It’s hard to say exactly how many people in Hawaiʻi will be impacted by this rule if it goes into effect, but we can make some estimations. The USDA estimates that 9 percent of households will lose eligibility which, in Hawaiʻi, would be almost 7,200 households, 14,000 people, and $3.4 million in lost federal revenue for our state.
Seniors will be particularly harmed by this new rule. Many seniors are living on fixed incomes, but may have assets (like a retirement account or a home that they own) that would restrict their eligibility without this waiver.
The new rule would also affect the number of children who have access to free school meals. This works in a couple of different ways:
Children in SNAP-participating households are automatically eligible for free meals at school—no application required. These children would no longer have access to this benefit if their household loses eligibility for SNAP.
Hawaiʻi has been taking full advantage of what’s known as the Community Eligibility Provision—a waiver that allows schools located in communities where 40 percent or more of the households use SNAP to offer 100 percent free meals to all students. This helps even those students who might not live in SNAP households, but whose parents may be struggling no less.
With 48 percent of our island population living paycheck-to-paycheck, we can’t afford to cut these critical benefits. Doing so would lead to a cascading benefit cliff that could have catastrophic results for Hawaiʻi families.
