After months of brushing aside questions, the Trump administration said on Wednesday that up to 982,000 children would lose automatic access to free meals at school under its plan to tighten SNAP eligibility rules. Brandon Lipps, deputy agriculture undersecretary, said the impact would be minimal because most of the children would qualify for a free or reduced-price meal if their parents filed the necessary paperwork, but Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Connecticut Democrat and a schoolteacher, said, “I’m curious why the Department of Agriculture would target children this way.”
The USDA did not mention the impact on school meals when it unveiled its SNAP proposal in late July. That plan would push an estimated 3.1 million people off of food stamps by restricting access to SNAP through so-called categorical eligibility. In a ripple effect, nearly 1 million children would lose automatic access to free school meals when their families lose SNAP benefits.
“They would not be correctly certified” for free meals, said Lipps, who oversees public nutrition programs that include school meals, SNAP, and WIC. The House Education and Labor subcommittee on human services required Lipps to testify under oath.
On the eve of Lipps’ testimony, the USDA released a four-page analysis of the impact of the SNAP rule on school meals. “As many as 982,000 children would no longer be directly certified for free school meals based on SNAP participation,” said the analysis. “These households would instead be required to submit a household application to determine school meal eligibility.”
Some 445,000 children, or 45 percent of the total, would still be eligible for free meals, while 497,000 of them, or 51 percent, “would become eligible for reduced-price meals,” said the USDA. About 40,000 children, or 4 percent, would have to pay full price to eat.
Lipps stressed that “an estimated 96 percent of children will remain eligible” for a free or reduced-price meal while a comparative handful of children would lose eligibility altogether because their family incomes are too high.
“They would still go through a lot more hurdles,” said Democratic Rep. Kim Schrier of Washington State, pointing to the need to apply for free or reduced-price lunches. Rep. Susie Lee, a Nevada Democrat, said some children “undoubtedly will fall through the cracks.”
When USDA officials briefed congressional staff workers about the SNAP proposal during the summer, they informally provided an estimate that half a million children would lose free school meals. But the USDA did not include the estimate in its regulatory impact analysis. When asked why, a spokesperson said in July that there was no reason to do so — the USDA was not proposing any changes to school meals.
House Republicans said on Wednesday that the administration was justified, in the name of program integrity, in toughening SNAP rules. Complaints about the impact on school meals were unfounded, they said, because all “statutorily eligible” children would receive a free or reduced-price meal, as they do now.
“Nothing changes. Is that correct, Mr. Lipps?” asked Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the senior Republican on the Education and Labor Committee. “That’s correct,” responded Lipps.
Committee chairman Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat, said in a statement that it was “abundantly clear the department needs to abandon its proposed rule.” Scott was one of the first lawmakers to press the USDA to disclose the impact of the SNAP rule on schoolchildren. Release of the USDA analysis was “a small step forward in transparency … overshadowed by a tremendous step backward in the fight against child hunger,” he said.
The USDA said it would allow 14 days for public comment on its analysis of the impact on school meals, beginning with a notice in the Federal Record in coming days. The comment period on the SNAP rule ended in late September.
An average of 29.6 million children ate hot meals daily under the school lunch program during fiscal 2018. Two-thirds of participants received meals for free and 6 percent paid a reduced price. School breakfast participation rates are roughly half those for school lunch, with 80 percent of those children receiving a free meal. Children from families with income below 130 percent of the federal poverty line can receive meals for free. Reduced-price meals are available to children from families with income up to 185 percent of the poverty line.
To read the USDA analysis, click here.
To watch a video of the subcommittee hearing, click here.