This week, the House will vote on a measure to repeal the estate tax, which would shower the wealthiest 0.2 percent of estates in the country with an average tax cut of $2.5 million. Meanwhile, the House has already passed a budget proposal that would convert the nation’s bedrock nutrition assistance program—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP—into block grants to the states. If implemented, this conversion would result in $125 billion in cuts to struggling families between 2021 and 2025.
This draconian proposal would kick up to 12 million people off of food assistance or cut nutrition benefits that primarily serve children, seniors, people with disabilities, and working families by an average of almost $55 per person per month. In doing so, this proposal would also cost the economy hundreds of thousands of jobs. In fact, assuming the cuts are evenly distributed across the five years between 2021 and 2025, an updated analysis of a 2012 Center for American Progress study estimates that the House’s proposed cuts to nutrition aid would cost the economy 286,000 jobs in the first year alone.
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