Budget Proposals Fund Food Assistance, Build Equity

We are picking up both ground and speed as we head into the final weeks of the 2021 Legislative Session. Join us in celebrating the enactment of HB 1151! A priority bill for us this session, this bill will provide transitional food assistance for families with children who are leaving SNAP so that they can have a smoother off ramp from the program. This bill also extends the Disaster Cash Assistance Program for individuals and families who have little access to other resources, and it updates our state’s needs standard to more accurately capture today’s costs of living when determining eligibility for public benefits. The bill had to be signed by the Governor by April 1 in order for our state to maximize the use of federal funds available to us for the disaster cash program. We thank bill sponsor, Rep. Mari Leavitt, the Governor, and House and Senate leadership for shepherding this bill quickly through the process.

The good news doesn’t stop there: we commend both the House and Senate budget proposals for making substantive and critically needed investments to help pull us out of this time of unprecedented hunger and economic crisis. Despite some differences in approach, overall, both proposals do the following to build a more equitable and therefore stronger economic recovery:

Substantial funding to restore food security and promote housing stability.

Both the House and Senate budgets make critical investments in our food safety net, including additional support for the Fruit and Vegetable Incentive Program that helps low-income people afford to buy more fruit and vegetables and robust support for our food banks. Both proposals also provide additional rental and housing assistance and funding to build more affordable housing.

Build inclusivity in cash assistance to support immigrant and BIPOC communities.

Both proposals also fund the Working Families Tax Credit which will provide Recovery Rebates to lower income families, including immigrant taxpayers. Both proposals also add funds to the Immigrant Worker Relief Fund to support undocumented immigrants who work essential jobs in our communities but for whom there is no safety net such as sick leave or other relief.

Take a better direction forward by not repeating mistakes from the last recession.

In the last recession, the state balanced budgets despite revenue shortfalls with an all-cuts approach, including gutting TANF, the core safety net program that provides cash assistance, childcare, and work support services for families with children living well below poverty. The impact of cuts to those and other human services were responsible for the continued growth in homelessness and the stalled decline in need for food banks that we saw throughout the Great Recovery. This also made us more vulnerable to economic crisis during the pandemic. Both budgets include proposals that boost the TANF cash grant and give families more time to get support from TANF because of the current state of increased hardship and unemployment. Additionally, both budgets make funding for their proposed investments possible by also including new revenue-a tax on only the most extraordinary of profits gained from sales of stocks and other capital gains.

In other words, lawmakers are listening. They have heard the public’s stories of hardship and support for balancing our budget by balancing our tax code. Our collective work ahead is to keep both messages front and center, loud and clear.

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