May 27, 2025
Republicans received pushback during last week’s Agriculture Committee meeting.
House Republicans are pushing to make a significant change to the legal cut-offs surrounding the claiming of dependent and work requirement exemptions under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. As it stands, a child must be under the age of 18. However, in the agriculture section of the Republican reconciliation bill, it has been proposed that the age be drastically lowered.
In a May 21 Agriculture Committee meeting, House Republicans proposed changing the SNAP age of dependency to 7, excluding those older from receiving assistance.
The proposed change caused an outpouring of pushback from Democrats who disagreed with the institution of harsher restrictions on state cost-sharing policies.
Rep. Angie Craig, a ranking member, said during the hearing, “This is one of the most egregious parts of this entire package. I honestly can’t understand how my Republican colleagues can think it’s a good idea to take food away and put more pressure on families who have 7-, 8-, 9-, and 10-year-olds. I mean, it’s almost like nobody’s got a 7-, 8-, 9-, 10-year-old.”
Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown from Ohio agreed and pushed for an amendment to the controversial text.
Brown added, “Let’s have an honest conversation about what these provisions mean. They punish single parents, and they punish caregivers of school-age children, families who are already doing everything they can to stay afloat right now.
Brown referenced a provision included in the Republicans’ proposal, which applies an exemption from the rule alteration for married adults who are “responsible for a dependent child 7 years of age or older” as long as their spouse is working a SNAP policy-compliant job.
Brown pressed at the hearing, “What is that about? Because to me, it seems to tell single-parent families, which make up around 21% of all SNAP households, that they’re less deserving of health because they don’t have a partner, their kids matter less. Is that what we’re saying?”
SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, provides federal assistance to families who qualify.
According to a statement delivered to NOTUS, Brown said of the SNAP changes, “Anyone with common sense knows that an 8-year-old and 9-year-old does not have the capacity to take care of themselves, to fend for themselves… We’re putting parents in some very uncomfortable and impossible decisions to be able to take care of their families. And I don’t think that that’s wise or right.”
During the Agriculture Committee meeting, Democratic Rep. Josh raised concerns about the seemingly arbitrarily chosen age of 7 to decrease the dependency cut-off too. Riley accused proposal writers of choosing the number without adequate thought.
Riley pointed out, “What I’m having a really hard time understanding is how did y’all came up with the transition of 6 to 7? Like, what is the big thing that happens when you go from 6 years old to 7 years old that justifies changing the law? I don’t know the answer, because we didn’t have any hearings.”
GOP Rep. Doug LaMalfa defended the proposal, explaining, “The concept that’s being lost here is that if all your children are 7 years or older, they’re in school for about seven hours per day, five days a week, generally in round numbers. So it’s 35 hours a week, that will give the parent or parents time to do something outside the home.”
He asked rhetorically, “It’s just a matter of, are we gonna have a genuine conversation? Or are we gonna have a bunch of flying rhetoric like has been there, that somehow Republicans are taking away the status of a minor from 17 down to 7?”
Ultimately, the new SNAP proposal stirred up disagreements between the parties, with many democrats pointing out that they were not involved in any hearings about the provisions included in the SNAP proposals.
Concerns have arisen about making such a drastic change without a formal hearing.
Committee Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson concluded in his final remarks on the SNAP amendment during the Agriculture Committee meeting, “If you want a true definition of oppression, what is cruel is keeping the families permanently in poverty. That is truly oppression, truly cruel. And we’re trying to make sure that that does not occur.”
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