500K children could lose access under SNAP changes

WASHINGTON — More than 500,000 children would lose automatic eligibility for free school meals under a rule proposed last week by the Agriculture Department intended to tighten access to food stamps.

The effect on school meals, revealed by Rep. Robert Scott, D-Va., chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, was not disclosed when the proposed food stamp rule was published last week. Agriculture officials said the new rule would close a loophole that they said allowed people with high incomes and accumulated assets to receive food stamps. The Agriculture Department said the proposal would cut off an estimated 3 million people from food stamps, a figure that critics said would include tens of thousands of working poor families.

But the department said nothing about children from those same households who would automatically lose eligibility for free meals at school.

The department has said that the proposed rule for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, “ensures SNAP benefits go to those who meet the eligibility criteria as outlined by Congress, not millionaires or those who simply received a referral to a nonworking

800 number.”

To justify the rule, conservatives point to a millionaire from Minnesota, Rob Undersander, who said he received food stamps for 19 months even though he had significant assets.

Scott said his staff was made aware that students would lose their automatic eligibility for free school meals in a phone call July 22 with staff members from the Agriculture Department. In a letter, he implored Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, to disclose the figures as part of the department’s regulatory impact analysis and restart the 60-day comment period.

Right now, households that receive benefits or services from another federal welfare program, are automatically eligible for food stamps in

39 states. In some of those states, households with gross incomes up to 200 percent of the poverty line — which would be about $50,000 for a family of four — are automatically eligible for food stamps. Under the proposal, fewer families would automatically qualify. Children in households with gross incomes between 185 percent and 200 percent of the poverty line would no longer be automatically eligible for any food assistance at school. And children in households with gross incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty line would be eligible for only reduced-price meals.

“Even that reduced price fee is very, very burdensome on families that are struggling to make ends meet,” Davis said.