Title: Food Security Improvement Act of 2018
Policy area: Agriculture and Food

Summary:
Food Security Improvement Act of 2018
This bill amends the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to require Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the food stamp program) benefits to be calculated using a low-cost food plan.
The Department of Agriculture must determine the requirements for the low-cost food plan using the diet described in the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion's publication entitled "The Low-Cost, Moderate-Cost, and Liberal Food Plans, 2007" and adjustments specified in this bill.
The bill revises the amounts of nutrition assistance block grants for Puerto Rico and American Samoa and requires the amounts to be modified based on adjustments to the low-cost food plan.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5849 Introduced in House (IH)]

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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. Velazquez, 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.

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

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Food Security Improvement Act of 
2018''.

SEC. 2. CALCULATION OF SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE 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', published by the Center for Nutrition Policy 
and Promotion (CNPP-20, November 2007) of the Department of 
Agriculture. The cost of such diet shall be the basis for uniform 
allotments for all households regardless of their actual composition, 
except that the Secretary shall--
            ``(1) make household-size adjustments (based on the 
        unrounded cost of such diet) taking into account 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 Islands of the United States, to 
        reflect the cost of food 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 striking 
        ``thrifty food plan'' each place it appears, and inserting 
        ``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 
                        thereafter'' 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 
                        appropriations under section 18(a), for fiscal 
                        year 2018 and each fiscal year thereafter, the 
                        amount determined under clause (iii), as 
                        adjusted by the percentage by which the low-
                        cost food plan has been adjusted under section 
                        3(l-A)(4) between June 30, 2018, and June 30 of 
                        the immediately preceding fiscal year.''.
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