Media Contact:

Emily Pickren
epickren@frac.org
202-640-1118

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2019 — The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) announced its support of Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s Improving Access to Nutrition Act. The bill would lift SNAP’s arbitrary three-month time limit and ensure that all people have access to nutrition assistance and stay healthy while seeking full-time work.

Under current law, adults with no children, ages 18-49, and without a documented disability, are subject to a harmful and arbitrary three-month time limit of SNAP benefits unless they are working 80 hours a month.

SNAP benefits ensure that all adults, including those who struggle to find stable employment, have access to food. Creating a barrier to food access does not help anyone secure employment. Furthermore, low-wage workers frequently face unstable hours, unpredictable schedules, discrimination, and other obstacles that keep them from reaching the 80-hour requirement.

Putting up a cruel barrier to food access does not help anyone secure stable employment – it only makes them hungrier, and we support today’s bill to eliminate this arbitrary time-limit.

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The Food Research & Action Center is the leading national nonprofit organization working to eradicate poverty-related hunger and undernutrition in the United States.