MAZON: House farm bill SNAP provisions don’t help military

The board of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger and a group of rabbis from around the country were on Capitol Hill Wednesday lobbying against the House farm bill on the grounds that the nutrition title will make some Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants lose benefits while not helping needy military families get food they need.

For several years, MAZON has pointed out that counting a service member’s Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) as income when determining eligibility for federal nutrition assistance keeps needy families from qualifying for SNAP and said that excluding the BAH would help thousands of low-income military families put food on the table.

The House farm bill contains a provision that excludes the first $500 of a service member’s BAH from counting as income for SNAP eligibility determination, but MAZON maintains that amount is too low to make much of a difference.

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