safety net

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Brooke Rollins, director of his Domestic Policy Council during his first term, for Agriculture secretary, saying she would "spearhead the effort to protect American farmers, who are truly the backbone of our country." Rollins is chief executive of a think tank that has advocated stronger work requirements for SNAP recipients. She would be the second woman to lead USDA.

The way state agencies purchase infant formula for low-income households, under the Women, Infants and Children program, may be creating a less resilient supply chain, said the Federal Trade Commission in a report on factors in the 2022 shortage of formula.

With its toothless payment limits, the U.S. farm program directs billions of dollars a year to the largest and wealthiest farmers in America while struggling family farmers often are overlooked, said the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Poverty, hunger and poor health are interlinked problems, ones that some doctors and medical systems are trying to address by screening patients for food insecurity, connecting them with food and other resources, and advocating broadly against inequality.(No paywall)

More than four in 10 American children live in households that are struggling to afford such basic expenses as food and medical bills, according to detailed data released yesterday by the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. Advocates say the new data, coupled with findings from the previous Pulse survey, paints a grim picture of childhood hardship and highlights the urgent need for new economic relief measures.(No paywall)

With time short for agreement on the farm bill, House Republicans are insisting on a stronger work requirement as a condition of eligibility for SNAP. Over the weekend, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, "[H]aving a work requirement in food stamps, having an education requirement in food stamps, is the best possible way" to put Americans to work.

When farm bill negotiators get down to business, the 47 House "conferees" will face an unusually big-caliber Senate team, with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as one of its members, a rare role for the leader. Senate Agriculture Committee leaders, in cheering the formal appointment of their nine negotiators, used "bipartisan" to describe their approach and take a swipe at the Republican-written House farm bill and its proposal to require more people to work 20 hours a week to qualify for food stamps.

The work requirements for SNAP recipients proposed by House Republicans "would cause more than a million low-income households with about 2 million people — particularly low-income working families with children —- to lose their benefits altogether or have them reduced," said Robert Greenstein, the head of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "We really believe they need to go back to the drawing board," saying the package is too poorly designed to be salvaged by amendment.