(Washington, D.C.)– Today, Representative Jill Tokuda spoke about her recently introduced bill, the Keep Kupuna Fed Act, on the Floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill would exempt Title II Social Security benefits (Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) from the SNAP program’s income eligibility requirements to ensure that kupuna (seniors) can stay on SNAP, despite any future cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) to Social Security.
During her recent visits throughout district, holding community town halls, Farm Bill listening sessions, and visiting SNAP processing centers, Rep. Tokuda heard from kupuna who lost their food assistance benefits due to the significant COLA increase for 2023. While COLA increases make sure that Social Security benefits keep up with inflation, they can have a disproportional impact by reducing benefits or kicking recipients off SNAP completely.
“Senior hunger is real and often our kūpuna are too humble to reach out for help; they want to leave food resources for keiki and families. But it’s our kuleana to take care of our kūpuna just as they’ve taken care of us and our communities, said Rep. Jill Tokuda. “People are being forced even further into hunger and food insecurity because of what should have been a benefit. That was not the intention of the cost for living adjustment and we must rectify it by striking it from income eligibility and making good on what our intent was — to keep kupuna fed.”
Tokuda’s Floor speech can be viewed here.
Background:
According to AARP, in 2020, nearly 9.5 million Americans ages 50 and older—8 percent of the total U.S. population—were considered food insecure. To help kupuna deal with the emergent challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress enacted legislation to provide SNAP recipients with extra benefits. The SNAP Emergency Allotments played a critical role in preventing millions of Americans, including our kupuna, from experiencing food insecurity in the face of the public health crisis, plus corresponding supply chain disruptions and rising inflation.
To address post-pandemic economic challenges, earlier this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Social Security Administration provided an historic 8.7 percent COLA increase to more than 65 million Social Security beneficiaries. While this bump in Social Security is welcome news, there has been an unintended and adverse impact on seniors’ SNAP benefits.
Seniors in every district in the country have or will lose or see a decrease in benefits because of this increase in Social Security benefits and its unintended impacts on their income levels. In Hawai‘i alone, thousands of kupuna will likely lose access to SNAP or experience a larger decrease in their SNAP benefits than the increased COLA can offset.
In March, Tokuda joined Congresswoman Jahana Hayes (CT-05), Ranking Member of the Nutrition, Foreign Agriculture, and Horticulture Subcommittee, and 28 other Members in a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inquiring about recent reductions to SNAP due to the COLA increase to Social Security benefits and the termination of the COVID-19 emergency.
A copy of the letter can be found here.
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