A little good news

 This isn't earthshaking, but I'll take what I can get these days. The USDA just announced that it will withdraw a proposed rule issued during the bad old days of the Trump administration. The dead rule would have changed eligibility requirements for SNAP and other food assistance programs in ways that were estimated to have cut food aid to three million or more Americans and also affected the eligibility for free school meals for around one million kids.

Unsportsmanlike, in other words. I blogged about it here and here back in 2019 during the public comment period. As I wrote at the time, 

Here's why it's bad: the proposed change eliminates "broad based categorical eligibility" (BBCE), which allows people who are eligible for other assistance programs (such as TANF or welfare, SSI or other programs) to be automatically eligible for SNAP.

Eliminating the BBCE creates a cliff effect in which people could experience drastic cuts in benefits when their living conditions modestly improve.

I take my food fights seriously. It's nice to have one less thing to worry about.

Nag nag nag

Today is the last day to make a public comment on a bad policy that could take away free school breakfasts and lunches from a million schoolchildren in the US. Yes, I know I'm being a bore about this but indulge me for one more day.

Short background: the Trump administration wants to change eligibility for SNAP that will cut off over 3 million Americans from food assistance. That's bad enough. But this will also change eligibility for free school meals under the Community Eligibility Provision. To state the obvious, kids tend to learn and act better when they've had nutritious meals. This would make many of them be hungry at home AND at school.

Click here to comment.

Thanks!

Hate to be a bore, but urgent action needed by Nov. 1 to protect child nutrition

The WV Department of Education isn't known for sounding alarm bells about federal policy. So you KNOW things are bad when they release a statement like this:

Proposed SNAP Changes Could Negatively Affect West Virginia Students 

Charleston, W.Va. – Students in West Virginia could be at-risk for losing automatic free school meal eligibility under proposed changes to the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The proposed changes would adjust how students are directly certified to receive services meaning households across the state will lose automatic free or reduced school meals.

The West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) and the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services (DHHR) are working closely to quickly and completely analyze the potential impact to West Virginia students during the USDA’s current public comment period.

It is estimated that more than 120,000 West Virginia households could be negatively affected by eliminating broad-based categorical eligibility as a policy in which households may become categorically eligible for SNAP in relation to another benefit, such as non-cash temporary assistance for needy families (TANF). In addition to the direct impact to these households, funding to West Virginia schools could be negatively affected. If the number of directly certified students decreases and those students are not captured by another federal direct certification indicator, school districts may have to discontinue implementing the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Many schools could find that they no longer qualify for CEP or that it is no longer financially viable. Therefore, the proposed rule would take away automatic free meals from additional children who otherwise would not be considered as being directly impacted by changes to the categorical eligibility in SNAP.

West Virginia has benefited greatly from the election of the CEP, a federal meal pricing benefit available to areas of high need. All of West Virginia’s 55 counties have at least one school that qualifies for CEP. During the 2019-20 school year, 43 counties have implemented the CEP for all students meaning all students eat breakfast and lunch for free; 10 counties have elected CEP partially, meaning some schools qualify, while other schools in the county do not; and two counties operate under the traditional method of free and reduced price meal applications throughout the county. Community eligibility uses the number of children directly certified for free school meals, primarily due to participation in SNAP, to determine if a school or district is eligible to implement CEP. The analysis of the proposed changes fails to consider the impacts on community eligibility provision.

“The proposed rule changes are concerning with nearly 1 million individuals estimated to be affected nationally,” said Amanda Harrison, Executive Director of the WVDE Office of Child Nutrition. “We know that hungry children do not perform at their best and when we meet the nutritional needs of our students, student achievement increases.”

The WVDE intends to submit comments to the USDA outlining the impact on Mountain State students and will make those comments public. The WVDE’s Office of Child Nutrition is also exploring other mechanisms or indicators that are in place to ensure that our neediest and most vulnerable students are directly certified for school meals.

If you haven't already, please click here to make your comments. The deadline is Nov. 1.

Urgent: act now to fight hunger in our schools

Short version: please act now to protect free breakfasts and lunches for tens of thousands of WV school children. You can click here to make comments to the USDA opposing rule changes to eligibility that could deny school food not only to thousands of individual students but whole schools and counties.

The deadline to make comments is Nov. 1, so this is urgent.

As an example, I submitted something like this, but you could keep it simple with just a sentence or two.

West Virginia has become a leader in child nutrition thanks to the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which expands free breakfasts and lunches to all students in schools where 40 percent or more of students are directly certified as being low income. The changes to SNAP eligibility proposed by the Trump administration would also impact CEP and could take away meals for one million individual students, as well as many entire schools and counties. Research has shown that universal access to school food has many benefits, including improved academic performance for poor and non-poor students, removing stigma, increasing participation in nutritious food programs, reducing hunger, supporting working parents and reducing paperwork for schools. The proposed changes should be rejected.

For background, here's a pretty scary news release from the WV Department of Education about the dangers this rule change poses for WV schools, parents and students. And not just WV but the whole country.

Please act quickly and spread the word. Thanks!

Taking food from kids

I'd like to send a big "Thank You!" to everyone who submitted public comments to the US Department of Agriculture opposing the Trump administration's efforts to take away SNAP food assistance to over 3 million Americans. The deadline for submitting public comments ended Sept. 23.

(One might think the administration would be otherwise occupied with phone calls to foreign governments or  lawyers or late night tweeting...)

According to the New York Times, the USDA got over 75,000 comments, the vast majority of which opposed the changes. That number included 70 comments from mayors, 17 from governors and at least three from state congressional delegations.

The mean-spirited rule change is an end run around the will of Congress, which declined to enact such measures when the massive Farm Bill was reauthorized in 2018.

Here's another reason why the change is bad, not that any more are needed: by changing eligibility requirements for SNAP, this will also mean changing them for kids who receive free school breakfasts and lunches, which could mean that 500,000 kids lose eligibility.

Over the last few years, West Virginia has made major progress in school-based child nutrition, thanks to the federal Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 and West Virginia's 2013 Feed to Achieve Act. The main reason for that is something called the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows school boards to provide free meals to all students in schools where 40 percent or more of students are certified as being low income.

This is one of the few areas where West Virginia is something of a national leader. In a good way. According to the Food Research and Action Center, West Virginia led the nation in school breakfast participation for the fifth consecutive year.

When the ranking was announced in February, state school superintendent Stephen Payne said that, “We know that hungry children cannot learn and when we meet the nutritional needs of our students, student achievement increases and classroom disruptions decrease. I am proud of the work our schools do every day to meet the needs of their students.”

He's not making that up. According to the Centers for Disease Control, research shows that access to nutritional meals improves learning.

The Trump rule change would cut kids--and some entire schools--off by changing the way kids are certified.

I think that American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten nailed it when she said that "In the richest country in the world, no child should be denied access to lunch at school because of their parents' income level or a cruel attempt by the Trump administration to cut food benefit programs for needy kids.”

She also said that  "Hungry children cannot focus on learning. Instead of shaming them, we should be investing in programs that support them and help them feel safe and welcome at school: nutrition programs that promote healthy habits and nurture families facing food scarcity, affordable breakfast and lunch for any kid who needs it, and other community and school supports that build students up, not tear them down.”

Need a karmic boost? Help fight hunger

In an earlier post, I wrote about the Trump administration's proposal to mess with the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). These changes, if enacted, would cut off food assistance from over 3 million Americans and 25,000 West Virginians.

The deadline to submit public comments on why this is a bad idea is this coming Monday, Sept. 23.

Here's a link to the USDA comment page.

Here's a link to tons of information about why this is a bad idea.

And here's a great story from today's Charleston Gazette-Mail about what this means for West Virginia.

I've been given to understand that making a public comment against these measures will guarantee a fortunate rebirth in the Pure Land of Amida Buddha, where the commentor can work towards Supreme Enlightenment under the most favorable conditions.

Pardon me for being a bore, but this is kind of important

The Trump administration has recently proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that could take away food assistance from 3 million or more Americans.

This step would ignore the clear will of bipartisan majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House that voted in the Farm Bill to leave the program intact.

Here’s what it does: eliminates the “broad based categorical eligibility” (BBCE) for people receiving SNAP. This allows people who are eligible for other assistance programs such as TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), Supplemental Security Income or other programs to be automatically eligible for SNAP.

Here’s why it’s bad: eliminating the BBCE creates a cliff effect in which people could experience drastic cuts in benefits when their living conditions modestly improve.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “SNAP supports work in part by phasing benefits down gradually — by only 24 to 36 cents for each dollar of increased earnings. But without BBCE, a family can lose substantial SNAP benefits from a small earnings increase that raises its gross income over SNAP’s eligibility threshold ... BBCE allows states to lift this threshold and phase benefits out more gradually, which lets households close to that threshold take higher-paying work and still benefit from SNAP.”

The proposed policy could have the negative effect of discouraging work by removing incentives for people to enter and stay in the labor force.

Eliminating BBCE could discourage struggling families from building modest savings and increase the level of bureaucracy in administering the program.

So if you want to do a good deed and make a public comment about the proposed policy, your message can be as simple as “Eliminating BBCE will push struggling families over a benefit cliff.”

Or “It’s a bad idea to discourage savings and asset building.”

Or “Why increase bureaucratic complexity? Keep it simple by keeping BBCE.” Or some combination of the above.

Then there’s this if you don’t want to overthink it: “It’s not nice to take away food from hungry people.”

And if you want to get biblical about it, there’s this verse from Isaiah: “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.”

There are plenty more where that came from.

The public comment period ends Sept. 23. One easy way to put your two cents in is to visit the Food Research and Action Center’s website  and click on this link.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail. And, yes, it was recycled from Goat Rope posts. But the public comment thing is important.)