Millions of households with low income must make difficult decisions every day when juggling the cost of many essential expenses — housing, food, utilities, child care, transportation to work, health care, and more. While costs continue to rise, income remains limited. Nearly half of households renting are cost-burdened (spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent). Households with low incomes spend about 18 percent of their income on energy, over three times the national average.  

As the price of housing, fuel, and food rise, the House and Senate budget bills propose significant cuts to critical assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), including limiting the states’ “Heat and Eat” programs, which will force many households with low incomes to make a tough decision: choosing between putting food on the table or cooling their homes during the summer and heating their homes during the winter. 

What Are SUAs? 

The Standard Utility Allowance (SUA) is an essential component of SNAP. It is part of the excess shelter cost deduction available to those applying for SNAP to decrease their gross income. A standard amount is used to represent utility costs for households with low incomes, since actual utility costs can fluctuate and be challenging to determine.  

States must update SUAs to reflect the changes in utility costs and can establish several SUAs to calculate the costs of different types of utilities, including:   

  • Utilities that are used for heating and cooling (HCSUA),  
  • Basic or Limited Utility Allowance (BUA/LUA) for utility costs that are not used for heating or cooling,  and 
  • SUAs for each individual utility: electricity, gas and fuel, water, sewage, trash, and telephone.  

States can further segment the amounts of these SUAs based on factors such as household size, geographic area, and season.   

Generally, the higher the deductions a household claims, the lower their net income, thus the higher their SNAP benefit. This makes it critical that households are appropriately screened for all utility costs to ensure they maximize the shelter deduction and their SNAP benefit.  

What Is LIHEAP? 

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is a federally funded block grant administered by all 50 states, territories, and federally recognized Tribes to assist households with low incomes to meet their home energy needs, including heating, cooling, crisis assistance, and weatherization benefits to households within a certain income threshold (determined state to state). Created in 1981 as a response to rising energy costs in the prior decade, LIHEAP served 5.9 million households in fiscal year (FY) 2023. 

States have the flexibility to set eligibility guidelines within specific parameters (150 percent of the federal poverty level or 60 percent of the state’s median income, whichever is higher), and the option to make households categorically eligible if they participate in other means-tested programs like SNAP, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or Supplemental Security Income (SSI). 

LIHEAP’s block grant structure limits the number of households that can benefit from the program. While all states offer some LIHEAP benefits to households with low incomes, many states also offer “Heat and Eat” programs.  

How Does Heat and Eat Work? 

The 1985 Farm Bill allowed states to confer the highest utility allowance (in many cases, the HCSUA) to households receiving LIHEAP benefits. States leveraged “nominal” LIHEAP payments, greater than $20 per year, to SNAP households who are not otherwise receiving a LIHEAP benefit. This nominal payment allowed SNAP households to claim a higher SUA, triggering a higher monthly SNAP benefit and allowing households to use more of their income on essential needs like utilities. Thus, the benefit for both utilities and food led to the program’s name: Heat and Eat. 

The Heat and Eat program allows households to access benefits and simplifies administration for both households and state agencies by reducing the paperwork households need to present to receive the most adequate deduction. Currently, 13 states (California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, Montana) operate Heat and Eat programs using LIHEAP or state-funded energy assistance.  

Why Is Heat and Eat At Risk? 

Both the House-passed budget bill and the Senate proposal threaten the LIHEAP-SNAP connection by limiting utility deductions only to households that include an older adult or a person with a disability. This will cause households without an older adult or person with a disability, including many working families with children, to experience an increased paperwork burden by having to prove utility payments — and cut SNAP benefits by an estimated $5.9 billion over 10 years. 

Congress should not limit the effectiveness of these two programs from working together to meet basic needs. Instead, Congress should make benefits more adequate by passing the Closing the Meal Gap Act, which would, among other things, permanently remove the cap on the excess shelter deduction, ensuring SNAP benefits adequately reflect households’ living expenses.   

How to Take Action? 

Advocates can: 

  • Use FRAC’s Action Network to send an email message directly to Congress to urge them to reject any proposals that would weaken SNAP. 

No one should be forced to choose between keeping their homes habitable and food — especially in the wealthiest nation in the world. Congress must protect SNAP and reject proposals to weaken this critical program.