Editor’s note: CHN sent the letter below to the all members of the U.S Senate on June 13, 2025.

Dear Senator: 

On behalf of the Coalition on Human Needs, I strongly urge you to reject the Senate budget reconciliation package as being formulated, based on the text released this week by the Senate Agriculture Committee along with our overarching concerns about deep cuts to basic needs programs. We outline many of our reasons for opposing this package below.  

The Coalition on Human Needs is made up of human service providers, faith groups, policy experts, and civil rights, labor, and other organizations concerned with meeting the needs of people with low incomes. We strongly opposed the House budget reconciliation package, and now also oppose the Senate package given the historic cuts to SNAP and high likelihood the overall package will raise costs and take other assistance from people with low incomes with harsh reductions in Medicaid and the ACA, higher education, the Child Tax Credit, and other human needs programs.  

The Senate Agriculture Committee proposal will reportedly cut $211 billion from SNAP, the largest cut to SNAP in history, as part of a budget package that guts basic needs programs. Millions of Americans are at risk of losing SNAP – and millions more will see benefits reduced, making it harder to put food on the table.  

At a time that many in communities across the country are struggling with the high cost of living, SNAP provides many of our neighbors including children, seniors, people with disabilities, and others with lower incomes with vital food benefits to purchase groceries from local food retailers. It serves people of all ages, staves off hunger, promotes well-being, and serves people in every state (see also state numbers including the numbers of children and people in rural areas who participate in the program). SNAP provides much more than just food assistance: It is a critical support system that promotes economic well-being and better health outcomes. The program plays a vital role in addressing hunger, reducing health care costs, and improving the long-term prospects of households with low incomes, including the one in five beneficiaries who are children. SNAP has been shown to improve student performance and allows families to maintain healthy diets, which in turn leads to long-term positive health outcomes for children and adults alike. 

The Coalition on Human Needs is alarmed about the inclusion of a new and radical proposal to shift the cost of SNAP benefits to the states for the first time – at a minimum of 5 percent for almost every state based on the history of error rates in most states but likely much larger for many more. By forcing most states to pay 5-15 percent of the federal funding for SNAP benefits going to families in the state based on SNAP Payment Error Rates via the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, many states will be forced to make cuts to SNAP or other programs or perhaps opt out of participating in SNAP completely (an even bigger risk during economic downturns, just when more families are at risk of hunger), undermining the longstanding bipartisan commitment to address hunger no matter what state hungry people call home.  

The Senate Agriculture Committee proposal also takes away SNAP benefits from unemployed workers and their whole families through harsher work requirements. For the first time, 2.1 million parents living in every state with children over 9 years old are at risk of losing SNAP after just 3 months – which means less food on the table for families with school-aged children. One in 5 SNAP recipients, including 2.5 million children and 8 million people total, are at risk of losing food assistance under these new “job loss penalties” that will apply to parents and older adults for the first time. The Senate proposal even removes exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and former foster youth put in place in the 2023 debt ceiling deal. Making it tougher for caregivers and their families facing job loss or unemployment to meet their basic needs does not help people find jobs and instead makes it more difficult for people to find work, especially in rural areas and other places in a time of economic uncertainty. It is of great concern that many eligible families will lose SNAP because of red tape burdens such as misdirected notices, language or literacy barriers, and inability to get help through office call centers, and people with conditions like severe pain, fatigue, or mental illness may not qualify as ‘disabled enough’ to be exempted from these new work requirements.  

Also breaking a longstanding bipartisan tradition, the Senate Agriculture Committee proposal bars lawfully present refugees, asylees, victims of trafficking and domestic violence, and others from receiving SNAP, policies in place dating from 1996. Current policy limits eligibility for SNAP to “qualified immigrants” as defined under PRWORA. Adults who are qualified immigrants are generally subject to a five-year waiting period before they can access SNAP, but the five-year bar does not apply to children, refugees and certain other humanitarian immigrants. The bill would limit eligibility for SNAP to citizens and LPRs/green card holders. The five-year bar for adults would remain. All other immigrants, including humanitarian immigrants, would be ineligible, and CBO estimates 100,000-250,000 people, including an estimated 50,000 children, would lose food benefits entirely – and this move to take food assistance away from legal immigrants will reduce the amount of nutrition for their families, which often include U.S. citizen children.  

We all know that many are struggling with higher food costs, but the Senate Agriculture Committee draft makes it tougher for families to deal with affording groceries by taking away future Thrifty Food Plan adjustments to keep pace with updated nutritional information. By restricting future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan — which is used to determine SNAP benefit amounts – the Senate Agriculture proposal would hurt everyone receiving SNAP benefits, 41 million people in 2024. SNAP benefits now average only $6.20 per person per day. Making it harder to adjust SNAP benefits based on the cost of food in local grocery stores will make it even tougher for families to put food on the table.  

Deep cuts will have a ripple effect across services, Overall, reduced SNAP benefits would hurt the broader economy, could lead to a loss of jobs in your state, and harm retailers in every county in your District. Food retailers, including grocery stores and farmers’ markets, depend on SNAP dollars to stay afloat. In areas where food retailers are already struggling, any reduction in SNAP benefits would have a harsh impact on businesses and the local economy. Food banks, pantries, and soup kitchens are reporting high demand for assistance. We all know the cost of food is high. While emergency food programs help, they only provide one meal for every nine meals that SNAP supplies. These emergency food providers cannot make up for the scope of this SNAP cut. Some of the proposals to set limits to the SNAP program could result in waiting lists while further straining food banks.   

And as a whole, many of the millions of families who will lose access to SNAP or face higher grocery costs given the reduction in their family’s benefits are likely to also lose health coverage given the likelihood that the pending Senate budget text will include similar cuts to basic health programs as the House reconciliation package, which CBO estimates leaves 16 million without health coverage with the largest cut to Medicaid in history. We also want to note that cuts to Medicaid and SNAP impact access to school meals along with access to WIC. If the Senate follows the House’s lead, roughly 20 million kids residing in every state would not receive the full $2,500 Child Tax Credit because their families make TOO LITTLE money―an average of $23,000 a year – and many lose out on the CTC completely if we deny eligibility to 4.5 million children (data on how many children in each state) who are citizens or legal permanent residents if one of their parents or guardians do not have Social Security numbers. Meanwhile, the House tax title requires all families claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to pre-certify their children which will impact all _families with children in the state who claim the EITC, a huge burden on families that will be more challenging when families file their 2025 taxes given that funding for the IRS is being gutted (see this letter signed by over 300 organizations for more on the EITC and CTC changes). The overall Senate reconciliation package could put higher education out of reach for low-income students because they will lose financial assistance. And many families will grapple with higher energy costs, which will disproportionately hurt people with low incomes, with rollbacks in IRA clean energy programs.  

These cuts to SNAP and other basic needs programs will be used partly for seizures of people without due process and family separation, border enforcement, detention, and deportation of immigrants, many of whom have legal status the Trump Administration is now attempting to overturn. These new policies are wasteful, inhumane, and destructive to our communities and economy. Unprecedented levels of funding for immigration enforcement, which in conjunction with the rescinding of the sensitive locations guidance will cause immigrants to fear participating in society and allow more ICE raids at hospitals, homeless shelters, food pantries and other social service locations. One in four children in the U.S. has an immigrant parent and immigrants paid $651 billion in taxes. Immigrants work disproportionately in in-demand industries, such as agriculture, construction, and long-term care. These attacks harm the country’s badly needed workforce – and our overall economy and society. 

We note that millions of people with low incomes will lose access to basic needs programs all to give tax breaks that primarily benefit the wealthy and corporations. We cannot keep allowing the passage of these unfair tax policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy while making low-income and vulnerable communities suffer, including by taking food assistance and health care away from millions. 

Many families are being squeezed by rising prices — and this gets worse if we unexpectedly fall on tough times. We know that the cuts and even harsher paperwork requirements will deny food assistance along with health care and other basic needs to people who need it – including those who are eligible for the program. Families are frightened they will lose their ability to feed their children through deep cuts to SNAP in the Agriculture Committee’s portion of this package. We are deeply concerned that the combination of uncertainty over tariffs and deep cuts to food assistance and health care will increase the number of families struggling to make ends meet, who will face the loss of jobs, rising prices, and signs of economic downturn.  

When families suffer economic reverses, smart, targeted support can keep people in their homes, children fed and in school, disabled veterans cared for, and workers on the job. We all want a more efficient government. But cutting the heart out of basic needs programs including SNAP and Medicaid doesn’t eliminate fraud — it denies help and creates bigger problems down the road, shifting the burden to service providers, local governments, and taxpayers, and will lead to higher costs and more strain on American taxpayers.  

In summary, families and communities will feel the compounding impact of cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, and other health assistance along with other basic needs programs – making the combined budget package even more reckless. That’s not good for our society or economy. Now more than ever, it’s critical that the Senate acts to protect health care, nutrition, and other essential services that help millions of families meet their basic needs. We should strengthen support for these programs — not take them away.   

It is not too late to change course. We lament the rushed nature of deliberation on the large-scale Agriculture Committee proposal – and the dangers of fast-tracking huge budget legislation without time for Senators and their staff to understand how extreme and damaging structural program changes and historic cuts to SNAP plus Medicaid and other health assistance will inflict unprecedented harms. We strongly urge you to reject the Agriculture Committee’s portion of the budget package and urge Leadership along with colleagues to instead protect and strengthen basic needs programs. 

Sincerely yours,

Deborah Weinstein,
Executive Director