Friend,
2.8 million New Yorkers, including 851,000 children, rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). To qualify for these benefits, the annual gross income of a family of four must be at most $39,000 a year.
But New York Republicans, including freshman Representative Mike Lawler, don’t think all of these recipients deserve nutritional support. This past summer, Lawler and his Republican colleagues forced an update to SNAP eligibility that, on September 1st, deemed hundreds of thousands of recipients ineligible.
And this isn’t the first time Republicans have taken nutrition assistance away from families in need. In 2020, the former president enacted similar restrictions that removed nearly a million recipients from the program.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
When their basic needs are met – having a place to live, knowing where our next meal will come from – families experiencing financial insecurity can focus on finding a job, finishing their education, and other activities that will lead to a family’s financial security. When programs like SNAP are taken away, stress and insecurity increase and stand in the way of meaningful progress.
Programs like SNAP are vital to millions of New Yorkers and tens of millions of families across the United States. And we need legislators in Washington who know that and will fight to protect our country’s families, not throw them to the wayside.
We can solve hunger in our country by enacting smart policies that work. But Republicans in Congress would rather take these programs away and then blame Democrats for the challenges our families face.
Enough is enough. To protect the future of our families, we must all come together to ensure that Democrats take back the House majority in 2024 and can get back to work, passing policy that will bolster our country’s working families.
