Population Health

One year after the passage of H.R. 1, analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds that at least 1.5 million fewer children — and more than 4.5 million fewer people overall — are receiving SNAP food assistance. SNAP participation has dropped in every state except Alaska, and by as much as 10 percent in some states. The harms to communities will continue to grow as states fully implement eligibility restrictions. This Working Group Call will provide a space for funders to share where they are focusing efforts, where they see the biggest funding gaps, and where there are opportunities to align with other funders. We will also use this time to gather input on future discussion topics and determine the Working Group meeting cadence going forward.

This Working Group Call will examine the rise of state waivers restricting the type of food that can be purchased with SNAP benefits, how retailers are navigating these changes, and what we might learn from the evaluations. To date, USDA has approved food restriction waivers in 22 states and incentivized waiver applications by tying them to increased funding for the Rural Health Transformation Program. USDA claims that these waivers are meant to “restore nutritional value in SNAP.” However, five SNAP recipients in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia sued the department in March, challenging these restrictions as harmful, unlawful, and burdensome.

Speakers from the National Governors Association, the National Grocers Association, and the University of Illinois Chicago will discuss the state-level decision-making process to apply for a waiver, the impact of these waivers on retailer participation in SNAP, and the public and private evaluation methods being used to assess whether the restrictions have any meaningful impact on nutrition for participants. The Center for Science in the Public Interest will also share strategic thinking about how they are exploring opportunities to engage in this continuously evolving political climate.

Our upcoming Working Group Call will focus on data collection opportunities following USDA’s decision to terminate the Economic Research Service’s (ERS) Household Food Security Survey. For more than 30 years, this survey provided the nation’s most consistent measure of food security, shaping our collective understanding of the drivers of food insecurity and informing key food and nutrition policy decisions. No existing data source offers the same level of insight, and its loss will make it harder to assess the impacts of H.R. 1’s SNAP cuts. Experts from the Capital Area Food Bank, Healthy Eating Research, and the Urban Institute will discuss why continued data collection—using consistent methods and metrics—matters and how funders can support this work. 

H.R. 1’s unprecedented requirement that states pay for a share of SNAP benefits based on their payment error rates will impose a massive financial burden on state budgets, forcing them to choose between cutting other programs and services, reducing SNAP eligibility, or even stopping participation in SNAP entirely.

To mitigate this threat, the Aspen Institute’s Financial Security Program and Social Finance have partnered to develop a proposal to help states effectively implement H.R. 1 and reduce some of the coverage losses and fiscal impacts. The concept, based on a successful model that supported states during Medicaid Unwinding, is to deploy small teams of digital services and process design experts directly to states or counties (depending on the type of SNAP administration).

Our Working Group Call focused on strategic communications opportunities. Elizabeth Wenk, Principal and Managing Director, and Nick Seaver, Senior Vice President and Co-Director of Training Programs at Burness, shared new insights from message testing about SNAP that highlights messaging that moves audiences, insights on which arguments resonate and counter opponents, and how different groups respond to these messages. The State Innovation Exchange (SiX) Food, Agriculture, and Rural Economies team shared what they are hearing from state legislators advocating for SNAP, and how funders can support state policymakers’ efforts to protect the program.