I 

115TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. R. 5849 

To amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to require that supplemental 

nutrition assistance program benefits be calculated with reference to 

the cost of the low-cost food plan as determined by the Secretary of 

Agriculture, and for other purposes. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MAY 16, 2018 

Mr. DEUTCH (for himself, Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Ms. VELA ́ZQUEZ, Mr. 

SOTO, Mr. CAPUANO, Ms. TITUS, Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts, Mr. 

GENE GREEN of Texas, and Mr. CARSON of Indiana) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Agriculture 

A BILL 

To amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to require 

that supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits 

be calculated with reference to the cost of the low-cost 

food plan as determined by the Secretary of Agriculture, 

and for other purposes. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Food Security Im5 provement Act of 2018’’. 


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1 SEC. 2. CALCULATION OF SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION AS2 SISTANCE PROGRAM BENEFITS USING COST 

3 OF LOW-COST FOOD PLAN. 

4 The Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2011 

5 et seq.) is amended— 

6 (1) in section 3 (7 U.S.C. 2012) by inserting 

7 after subsection (l) the following: 

8 ‘‘(l–A) ‘Low-cost food plan’ means the cost of the diet 

9 determined by the Secretary, as described in ‘The Low10 Cost, Moderate-Cost, and Liberal Food Plans, 2007’, pub11 lished by the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion 

12 (CNPP–20, November 2007) of the Department of Agri13 culture. The cost of such diet shall be the basis for uni14 form allotments for all households regardless of their ac15 tual composition, except that the Secretary shall— 

16 ‘‘(1) make household-size adjustments (based 

17 on the unrounded cost of such diet) taking into ac18 count economies of scale; 

19 ‘‘(2) make cost adjustments in the low-cost food 

20 plan for Hawaii and the urban and rural parts of 

21 Alaska to reflect the cost of food in Hawaii and 

22 urban and rural Alaska; 

23 ‘‘(3) make cost adjustments in the separate 

24 low-cost food plans for Guam, and the Virgin Is25 lands of the United States, to reflect the cost of food 


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1 in those States, but not to exceed the cost of food 

2 in the 50 States and the District of Columbia; and 

3 ‘‘(4) on October 1, 2019, and each October 1 

4 thereafter, adjust the cost of the diet to reflect the 

5 cost of the diet in the preceding June, and round the 

6 result to the nearest lower dollar increment for each 

7 household size.’’; 

8 (2) in section 8(a) (7 U.S.C. 2017(a)) by strik9 ing ‘‘thrifty food plan’’ each place it appears, and in10 serting ‘‘low-cost food plan’’; and 

11 (3) in section 19(a)(2)(A) (7 U.S.C. 

12 2028(a)(2)(A))— 

13 (A) in clause (i) by striking ‘‘and’’ at the 

14 end; 

15 (B) in clause (ii)— 

16 (i) by striking ‘‘each fiscal year there17 after’’ and inserting ‘‘each of the fiscal 

18 years 2004 through 2018’’; and 

19 (ii) by striking the period at the end 

20 and inserting a semicolon; and 

21 (C) by adding at the end the following: 

22 ‘‘(iii) for fiscal year 2019, 

23 $2,191,000,000; and 

24 ‘‘(iv) subject to the availability of ap25 propriations under section 18(a), for fiscal 


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1 year 2018 and each fiscal year thereafter, 

2 the amount determined under clause (iii), 

3 as adjusted by the percentage by which the 

4 low-cost food plan has been adjusted under 

5 section 3(l–A)(4) between June 30, 2018, 

6 and June 30 of the immediately preceding 

7 fiscal year.’’. 

Æ 


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