The Farm Bill is significant legislation that reauthorizes many agriculture and nutrition programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). With the current Farm Bill set to expire in September 2023, Congress is considering policy changes that could affect millions of individuals and families who rely on SNAP to put food on the table. As our nation’s largest nutrition program, SNAP lifts millions of people out of poverty, boosts local economies, and effectively reaches some of our nation’s people in greatest need. However, false racist narratives and policies have produced inequality within our public benefits systems and disproportionately affect communities of color with low incomes. Protecting SNAP is crucial to protecting short- and long-term health, education, and employment outcomes for children and families.

CLASP and the Community Partnership Group have developed a framework for how policymakers can and should make SNAP stronger and more effective in the upcoming Farm Bill. SNAP benefits must be sufficient. SNAP must be available to all who need it. Trust, respect, and trauma-informed care must guide program administration. SNAP must encourage economic opportunity.

Our priorities and recommendations can be found in a Community-Driven, Anti-Racist Vision for SNAP and a companion executive summary and fact sheet:

SNAP Benefit Levels

• Expanding Double Up Bucks is Essential for Reducing Food Insecurity
• We must continue to update the Thrifty Food Plan to ensure SNAP benefits are sufficient
• Modernizing the TFP: One Step on the Journey Toward Food Sovereignty
• Congress and States Must Do More to Address EBT Skimming

SNAP Benefit Accessibility

• To Help Returning Citizens Rebuild Their Lives, Congress Must Lift the SNAP Felony Drug Ban
• SNAP Time Limits Can Reduce Access for Disabled People
• Congress can address campus hunger by lifting SNAP’s college student work requirements
• The SNAP Hot Foods Ban Is Inequitable and Should Be Removed
• Work requirements won’t lead to better employment or economic outcomes
• Immigrants Have Been Waiting 25 Years for the LIFT the BAR Act
• No More Double Punishments: Lifting the Ban on SNAP and TANF for People with Prior Felony Drug Convictions
• SNAP and Students: Food Assistance Can Support College Success

Trust and Respect in Program Administration

• SNAP “Program Integrity:” How Racialized Fraud Provisions Criminalize Hunger
• CLASP Testimony on the Racialized History of Fraud in SNAP

Economic Opportunity

• Strategies to Improve the Effectiveness of SNAP’s Employment and Training Program
• Eliminating Asset Limits: Creating Savings for Families and State Governments

Meet the Experts

The Community Partnership Group (CPG) is a diverse collective of activists from across the United States who partner with nonprofits, administering agencies, and policymakers to ensure that their work is grounded in the expertise of people directly impacted by poverty and/or anti-poverty policies (e.g., the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP). Each member of the CPG has developed their expertise through direct experience with public benefits programs—whether through participation or discriminatory exclusion—and their ongoing advocacy to eliminate poverty and barriers to access and inclusion within their communities. Read more ⏩

Parker Gilkesson is a senior policy analyst with CLASP’s Income and Work Supports team. She specializes in work support programs for people with low incomes and focuses on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Parker is a subject matter expert in social policy, benefit eligibility, human services delivery, racial equity, community partnership, and state and local policy regarding SNAP, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Medicaid. Read more ⏩

Juan Carlos Gomez is a senior policy analyst for CLASP’s immigration and immigrant families team. He works with the rest of the team to uplift policies that support immigrant families, such as securing access to public benefits and ensuring that children in immigrant families have the support and resources necessary to succeed. Additionally, he co-chairs the Protecting Immigrant Families coalition’s federal advocacy working group. Read more ⏩

Teon Hayes is a policy analyst with the income and work supports team at CLASP. She is passionate about helping communities historically marginalized by public policy overcome systemic barriers. Within her policy expertise, she brings an understanding of the need to incorporate lived experience and center racial equity. Read more ⏩

Elizabeth Lower-Basch is the deputy executive director of policy at CLASP. She is an expert on federal and state cash assistance, Medicaid, SNAP, and refundable tax credits, how they impact the lives of people with low incomes—including immigrants—and how they could be improved to increase racial equity and justice. Ms. Lower-Basch has expertise in both federal policy development and in effective and cross-cutting implementation of federal policy. Read more ⏩

Sapna Mehta is a senior policy analyst on the education, labor & worker justice team at CLASP where her research focuses on job quality, including paid family and medical leave and paid sick days; labor standards enforcement; worker organizing; and workforce development Sapna is a seasoned economic policy advocate with experience across advocacy, labor, government, and philanthropy. She brings deep expertise on issues related to worker rights and job quality. Read more ⏩

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