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 fol-
lowing 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. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Food Security Im-
provement Act of 2018’’. 
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SEC. 2. CALCULATION OF SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION AS-
SISTANCE PROGRAM BENEFITS USING COST 
OF LOW-COST FOOD PLAN. 
The Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2011 
et seq.) is amended— 
(1) in section 3 (7 U.S.C. 2012) by inserting 
after subsection (l) the following: 
‘‘(l–A) ‘Low-cost food plan’ means the cost of the diet 
determined by the Secretary, as described in ‘The Low- 
Cost, Moderate-Cost, and Liberal Food Plans, 2007’, pub-
lished by the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion 
(CNPP–20, November 2007) of the Department of Agri-
culture. The cost of such diet shall be the basis for uni-
form allotments for all households regardless of their ac-
tual composition, except that the Secretary shall— 
‘‘(1) make household-size adjustments (based 
on the unrounded cost of such diet) taking into ac-
count economies of scale; 
‘‘(2) make cost adjustments in the low-cost food 
plan for Hawaii and the urban and rural parts of 
Alaska to reflect the cost of food in Hawaii and 
urban and rural Alaska; 
‘‘(3) make cost adjustments in the separate 
low-cost food plans for Guam, and the Virgin Is-
lands of the United States, to reflect the cost of food 
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in those States, but not to exceed the cost of food 
in the 50 States and the District of Columbia; and 
‘‘(4) on October 1, 2019, and each October 1 
thereafter, adjust the cost of the diet to reflect the 
cost of the diet in the preceding June, and round the 
result to the nearest lower dollar increment for each 
household size.’’; 
(2) in section 8(a) (7 U.S.C. 2017(a)) by strik-
ing ‘‘thrifty food plan’’ each place it appears, and in-
serting ‘‘low-cost food plan’’; and 
(3) 
in 
section 
19(a)(2)(A) 
(7 
U.S.C. 
2028(a)(2)(A))— 
(A) in clause (i) by striking ‘‘and’’ at the 
end; 
(B) in clause (ii)— 
(i) by striking ‘‘each fiscal year there-
after’’ and inserting ‘‘each of the fiscal 
years 2004 through 2018’’; and 
(ii) by striking the period at the end 
and inserting a semicolon; and 
(C) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(iii) 
for 
fiscal 
year 
2019, 
$2,191,000,000; and 
‘‘(iv) subject to the availability of ap-
propriations under section 18(a), for fiscal 
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