It’s a New Year—Let’s Get to Work!

It’s the start of 2019, and a partial federal government shutdown continues into this new year. Congress adjourned for the holiday break without an agreement on a spending bill due to a partisan standoff over funding for a border wall. Although struggling families can continue to rely on programs that put food on their tables including SNAP, school meals, WIC, and commodities at food banks and distributed on federal Indian reservations, we must have a spending agreement and a fully-functioning government soon to provide certainty that these programs will continue beyond January.

Every day that passes without ending this shutdown puts more people at risk of hunger: federal employees are furloughed or are working without pay; funding for school meals, food banks, and food for families with infants and young children is contingent on what’s left in reserves. Food banks will no doubt see an increased need for services should this shutdown continue.

But the new year also brings a new Congress: the first thing that our new House of Representatives will do when they return to work on January 3 is to vote on a bill to re-open the government—a bill that the Senate passed unanimously before adjourning for recess. The bill must pass out of the Senate again and be signed by the President to take effect.

The new year also brings new opportunities for us to work on protecting and strengthening the programs that help struggling families with increased resources for essential needs.

The 2019 State Legislative session starts on January 14. We’ve got lots of momentum from last year’s successful passage of the Washington Kids Ready to Learn Act that increases access to school breakfast for low-income kids. We’re looking forward to doing more this year, including efforts to expand access to fruits and vegetables for struggling families, tear down the barriers to participating in TANF for families living in deep poverty, and funding our state’s version of the Earned Income Tax Credit—the most effective anti-poverty program.

2019 will also bring renewed and strengthened efforts to protect SNAP, our first line of defense against hunger. Although we are grateful that Congress passed a strongly bipartisan Farm Bill that protects SNAP, USDA announced intentions to issue a proposed rule that will threaten to take food off the tables of many unemployed and underemployed adults, even if they live in areas of high unemployment. We will let you know when the public comment period begins as we will be calling on all of you to join us in speaking out against this harsh and harmful rule.

Together, we made great strides in 2018-let’s get ready to get back to work to do even more in 2019 to advocate for policies and budget investments that create equitable access to nutritious food for all in Washington!

Register today for Hunger Action Day, a citizen lobby day in Olympia, brought to you by the Anti-Hunger & Nutrition Coalition. This is a great opportunity to help us move our food and nutrition priorities for the 2019 legislative session. You’ll get training in talking points, tips on meeting with your legislators, meet your neighbors from your legislative district, and meet with your legislators to talk about what we can do this year to help struggling households have nutritious food to eat.

WHAT YOU CAN DO