← Data-Smart City Pod
Data-Smart City Pod
What Mayors Need to Know About SNAP with Dr. Sara Bleich
00:21:47
In this episode, host Stephen Goldsmith speaks with Dr. Sara Naomi Bleich, professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and former USDA Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity. Dr. Bleich breaks down major recent changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—including historic budget cuts and stricter work requirements—and what they mean for the children and families utilizing this program. She shares actionable guidance for mayors and city leaders, including how to minimize harm from SNAP reductions and what city officials can do to ensure residents maintain access to essential nutrition support.
Loading summary
Transcript29 lines
- [00:03]
A
From datasmart city solutions the bloomberg center for cities, this is the datasmart citypod.
- [00:14]
B
Hello, this is Stephen Goldsworth, professor of Urban Policy at Bloomberg center for Cities at Harvard University with another episode of our podcast, DataSmart CityPod. Today we have an exceptionally accomplished guest, Dr. Sarah Naomi Bleichman. Dr. Bleisch is the inaugural Vice Provost for Special Projects at Harvard, professor of Public Health at the Chan School, a faculty member at the Kennedy School. She also served in the White House for many years in President Obama and Biden's administrations. Race Rolls, usda. Welcome, Sarah.
- [00:47]
A
Thank you so much for having me.
- [00:51]
B
Okay, so before we get to the subject at hand, how about a little bit about your background. Now, our podcast is only 20 minutes, so you can't use the full 20 minutes for your background. So because it's pretty extensive. So just tell us a little bit about your work at maybe the as Director of Nutrition, Security and Health at usda, that would be particularly important.
- [01:11]
A
Fair enough. And maybe I'll just take one step back and just orient folks to a little bit of how I come to this work. So I am from inner city Baltimore and have grown up with this North Star, always wanting to help underserved populations achieve a better quality of life. And, and I grew up with a background that put me in very different worlds. So one of my grandpas was a corn farmer in Maryland, and I remember sitting in the back of his truck pulling crab apples off trees while he was driving. My other grandpa was a radiologist in New York and I would go visit him and he lived in a building that had the second fastest elevator in the city. One of my grandfathers was black and the other one was white. And I remember when they died and it felt like the black grandpa got the worst of care and the white grandpa got the best of care. And that really got me interested in health and trying to give back. And so I had the opportunity to serve both in the Obama and the Biden administrations. And while I was in the Biden administrations, I focused on nutrition security. And that's the idea that you want to have meaningful access to healthy food, not just calories, but calories are going to help improve well being. And that work was particularly meaningful for me because when I was a small child, my family received a number of the programs that I was trying to add nutrition security to, like school meals, like wic, which is for women, infants and children, and like a program called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is now called snap. So I have a very strong desire to think about how do we use evidence, how do we use policy to try to ensure that people can achieve their best quality of life?
- [02:50]
B
That was a great story and helps frame the conversation as well as us. Understand you. So I have a local government background, you know, a different level of government than much of what you've done. And our focus with the largest cities in the country has been around opportunity.
- [03:12]
A
Right.
- [03:13]
B
So how do folks in the city have an opportunity? As we look at the necessity for good nutrition as a step to opportunities or step to education, Just brief overview of snap. I want to spend our time on kind of how does a city handle the changes in SNAP requirements? But first, just a little bit about how extensive SNAP is and how it affects folks, particularly in under resourced neighborhoods.
- [03:43]
A
Great question. So SNAP is one of 16 different federal nutrition assistance programs. Now together we those 16 programs serve one in four Americans each year. SNAP is the largest and it serves about 40 million Americans each year. The way that it works is if you're in the program, you basically get a debit card. And that debit card gives you benefits to purchase food at grocery stores. And there are about a quarter of a million eligible grocery stores. And to be eligible, you have to meet a certain income threshold. So it is a program that is a huge lifeline for tens of millions of Americans. And there's mountains and mountains of evidence which teach us that SNAP helps reduce food insecurity, it helps reduce poverty, it helps improve public health outcomes for children and people with low income. It also plays a crucial role by stimulating local economies because SNAP is designed to get bigger during economic downturns and it's designed to get smaller when the economies are doing better. And a final thing that we know that SNAP was able to do is it helps reduce long term health care costs.
- [04:45]
B
Given the increases in health care costs, that seems quite important. I want to move to kind of the changes in eligibility. But if we look at health costs and nutrition, and you were at the local and state level trying to make a difference in terms of your health costs, give us a couple of hints about how you might go about improving access to good nutrition.
- [05:10]
A
Yeah. So you know, one of the things that's clear is that with better nutrition, you can prevent a lot of healthcare costs through lower readmission rates. So for example, one of the reasons that people often get admitted is they have to take medications. Those medications have to be paired with food. The person doesn't have access to food. And so one of the things that happened during the Biden administration is that There was a desire to increase the overall size of the SNAP benefit to. To meet the needs of people who were on the program. And essentially what happened is there's something called the Thrifty Food Plan, which is basically a calculator that's used to figure out how big should the SNAP benefit be. That was evaluated based on the request of Congress. And what that reevaluation did is it increased the overall size of the SNAP benefit by about $29 per person per month, which sounds small, but what that is doing is putting healthy food within reach for tens of millions of people. And that is one critical step to ensuring that people have what they need to help avoid things like hospital readmissions.
- [06:15]
B
I know we have a set of questions that we've talked to you about in advance, and I'm not asking any of those questions, but let me ask one more question before I kind of get to the issue at hand. So if you think about the local landscape, you've got this intersection between school lunch, SNAP and food pantries, right where the nonprofit has organized access to food. How should we think about the changing landscape and the intersection of those three things? Are they all equally under pressure? Is one better or worse off than the other? How do changes in SNAP affect food pantries, for example?
- [06:56]
A
Yeah, so let's think first about food pantries. So one of the things that has happened recently is that funding to food pantries has been reduced and demand for food pantries has increased because of elevated food prices. So that puts a lot of pressure on that point, which is a source of food for many people. So that's the food pantry piece of it. So then how does that relate to SNAP at school meals? So one of the things that has been helpful is that there have been automated enrollment features that have been created to make it easier for someone to go from one program to another. So basically, if someone is already in snap, the state has a requirement to sort of passport that person into free school meals. And so if someone loses their SNAP benefits and they don't know it, they also become collateral damage for also losing school meal benefits. So all of these programs with similar income eligibility relate to each other because there have been efforts in the past to use technology to smooth enrollment. But what that means is that if you fall off of one program, you can also fall off of another one.
- [08:01]
B
So what has changed this year? What are the eligibility changes? I'm going to talk about what cities can do in response, but just in a nutshell, what are the changes with respect to eligibility?
- [08:14]
A
Yeah, well, one of the biggest things that's happened this year is actually not necessarily eligibility, but cuts. And so the One Big Beautiful Bill act, which came out not too long ago, it instituted the biggest cut to the history of the SNAP program. It's a 20% reduction in total program costs, which is $186 billion through 2034. And that is going to mean that millions of people are going to lose benefits. Another thing that happened through the One Big Beautiful Bill act is now there are stricter work requirements for snap. There are also limits on future benefit increases. We talked, for example, about the Thrifty Food Plan. The bill requires that all updates be cost neutral, meaning that it can't go up over time. It also, for the first time, shifts more of the costs to states. And so states are going to be in a position of making some tough decisions. And of course, things roll downhill. So if states are making tough decisions, then local governments are also going to have tough decisions to make. Now we are just talking about snap. The federal safety net is much bigger than that. And so we are not focusing on Medicaid. But it is worth acknowledging that there are also big cuts to the Medicaid program. So the entire federal safety net right now is really being cut in ways that are going to have real and impactful negative impacts on families around the country.
- [09:37]
B
Just one request for explanation. The decreases in SNAP benefits, do they incorporate the projected reductions in eligibility due to the work requirement or were those two different things?
- [09:53]
A
Let me clarify the question. I think what you're asking me is when we think about the reductions in the overall SNAP budget, does that include work requirements?
- [10:02]
B
Basically, as you were talking, I was thinking to myself, well, that could be less money per individual, it could be fewer individuals. It could be individuals who are supposed to work and aren't. And I was just trying to figure out where. What are the components of the reduction?
- [10:19]
A
Got it. So overall, there will be less money in the program and therefore less money to distribute across participants. At the same time, eligibility to gain access to the program is getting stricter. And so with respect to work requirements, what has happened is that the burden has shifted to parents and older adults. So for the very first time ever, the work requirement includes parents of school age children over 14 and older adults from the age of 55 to 64. So this is creating for these new groups that are not eligible a huge paperwork burden. And that paperwork burden is going to reduce access. So the way to think about it is there are all these different pressure points that are coming on the SNAP program, it's going to have fewer resources. It's going to be harder for people to enroll. States are going to have to share in the costs, which may reduce the total amount of money in the program. And it is through this combination of factors that access to the program and participation will go down.
- [11:20]
B
So I think there's two maybe opposite sides of the coin question for you. One would be is there any way to. Without sugarcoating it, but is there any way to turn this into an opportunity? Right. So could you organize city and state resources to provide more job opportunities using this as a entry point and. Or for folks who are eligible but are confused about certification, Is there a role for cities, nonprofits, to make the certification and compliance process easier? So maybe both sides of the coin, if you would.
- [11:56]
A
Yeah. So I'll be very candid. It's a little hard for me to see the opportunities in what's happening right now. That said, there is a chance to leverage technology to facilitate the current environment that we're in. But you first asked about what can happen related to workforce development. So as we think about local governments, workforce development is often a space that mayors run. And so what can they do in the face of the fact that we now have work requirements that are stricter in snap? So they can talk to employers about work requirements and they can ask for their help. They can explain, for example, the that they need their help in documenting qualifying work hours and that they want employers to give people 20 hours rather than 18 because it is by having 20 that you can actually meet the federal work requirement standard that is now the new standard for snap. And the reason why it's important for mayors to do this is that it's much more likely for a head of a company to be persuaded if they're approached by a mayor rather than if they're approached by a local store manager. And so it's really important for mayors to think about what are the tools that are at their disposal. And this is local governments as well, and how can they leverage those in a way that's going to be really effective? The other thing you asked about is how can you facilitate certification. So what's interesting is that the number one time people lose their benefits is when they are up for renewal. And that's about 25% to 30% of people are losing their benefits. This is something known as churn. So you're basically losing your benefits for procedural reasons, like you didn't receive or return a form. This is even though the household is eligible but you have to reapply because you have churned off the program. This is a huge administrative burden for states, and it also means that families for a period are losing benefits. So churn is a lose lose for everyone involved. But in the certification period, there is a technical solution here. States can use simplified reporting, which reduces the number of changes a household has to report to the state agency during the certification process. This is already done by 31 states. And more states can join and do this. And where local governments come into play is they can push states to take this action. And one of the ways they can do this pushing is by being really clear about this is the harm that's happening to the people in our district when they roll off of SNAP in other programs. Here's why it's really important for you to simplify enrollment procedures so that you don't pay more money and that there is seamless continuation of benefits under the new bill.
- [14:36]
B
Churn. It's up to the state or the federal government how frequently one needs to certify.
- [14:43]
A
So on the question of certification, states do have the ability to change the length of a certification period. Most states assign households to 12 months. However, states can provide longer certification periods. So up to two years or even a year and a half or 36 months for elderly and or disabled households. And so that's a really important option for states to be thinking about, which can help reduce the churn.
- [15:11]
B
A few months ago, a couple months ago, you spoke to chiefs of staff of the largest cities in the United States. And you were realistic, as you have been today, in the challenges that they're going to face. But you also went through a list of things that they might do, right, that they might use the mayoral leadership to be able to kind of rally their communities to do. Could you take us through a list of things that cities who are trying to make a difference, mayors are trying to make a difference can do for their most vulnerable, given the situations that those neighborhoods are going to face.
- [15:44]
A
Absolutely. And I appreciate this question. And I just want to acknowledge for any mayors or city leaders that are listening, this is a really hard moment. And mayors and city leaders have the ability to not make this moment harder than it actually has to be. So the first thing that mayors and local leaders can do is not to underestimate the confusion. There is so much uncertainty and confusion right now with all the changes happening with changes to the nutrition safety net and to those, the broader federal safety net more broadly. And I think that generally we really underestimate how confused the public is. And this is something that happens whenever there's a broad change to policy. And so what's really important is that the bully pulpit of the mayor's office we use to encourage people to seek all benefits for which they are eligible and to make sure the public understands here are the changes that have actually happened because there's a lot of confusion and misconception there. So that's one, don't underestimate the confusion and bring clarity. Two is that mayors should do everything in their power to reduce harm. And one of the main ways that mayors can do that is they can put pressure on states to make choices that make things easier. So we've talked a bit about the work requirement. What are some things that mayors can do there? They can help identify practical solutions. So if you're filling out the work requirement form, is it easy to read? Do you have to click into five different parts of the form to be able to complete it? Are there ways to simplify just the user experience? Another thing is that many mayors run assistance programs that help people navigate the process of enrolling in snap. So use that knowledge and experience to make the gates to the state about how to simplify the process. And the last thing I would say in terms of reducing the harm is to be creative. So San Francisco and New Jersey, for example, are using artificial intelligence to encourage staff efficiency and to reduce costs and to leverage tools that are available, particularly technological tools to help reduce the harm that people in your community are experiencing. And then the third thing is to document the harm and that will help make the case for future policy change. The negative impact has to be clear if we want things to change in the future. It is very unlikely that the federal or state government is going to be studying all the things that are happening right now. And mayors do really important ground truthing to understand what is and that is not working for the user experience. This can come through 211 lines or churches or community organizations. And armed with that knowledge and those stories, mayors can be a really powerful voice. So for example, a mayor can say, this is what happens to the people in my community when they're cut off snap. This is what happens to the people in my community when they lose snap. And now they don't have access to school meals. And by the way, here's the impact on grocers when they have a drop in their SNAP revenue. So really describing the pain points is a third area that mayors and local officials can be really, really.
- [19:00]
B
That was just a terrific answer before. I thank you Let me just follow up with a question. Does solving food desert access to fresh food, can you do that at enough scale to make a difference? Are there urban garden examples that have made any material difference? Do those approaches mitigate some of these issues or are they not that significant?
- [19:26]
A
Yes, creating physical access to food is important, and financial access is also really important. So if you take a neighborhood that doesn't have a lot of access to healthy food and you put a very expensive store in it, it's physically accessible, but it's not financially accessible. And you really need to marry those two things. Now, the challenge is when supermarkets are making a decision to go into a particular area, it's based on profit or revenue by square foot. So a lot of times it doesn't actually make financial sense for a supermarket to go somewhere. This is where city programs that are subsidizing supermarkets are really important to ensuring that people living in a particular area have access to healthy foods. Fruits, vegetables, whole foods, et cetera. But apart from large brick and mortar, there are also examples of ice cream trucks being converted into fruit and vegetable trucks or green cards, for example. In the case of New York City, there are lots of ways to get healthy foods into neighborhood that leverage existing infrastructure and get to where people are to create both physical and financial access. But those two things really need to go hand in hand.
- [20:34]
B
Well, these are terrific answers. I appreciate so much your combination of expertise and practical advice. And this is Steve Goldsmith, professor of Urban Policy at the Bloomberg center with Dr. Sarah Naomi Bleich, talking about the issues of access to food and what's facing cities. I'm just hesitating a little bit because I feel like if I kept you on for another two hours, we could solve a lot of problems. But let me just kind of close by saying I appreciate your analysis and your time that you're loaning this city and state officials here, and thank you so much for your good work.
- [21:10]
A
Thank you so much for having me and my hats go off to everyone on the front lines that is dealing with these challenges. This is a tough moment. If you like this podcast, please Visit us at datasmartcities.org and find us on itunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast was hosted by Stephen Goldsmith and produced by me, Betsy Gardner. Thanks for listening.