New from APPAM: The Journal of Policy Implementation & Evaluation (JPIE)!
JPIE will publish short, peer-reviewed articles with timely, real-world insights on policy design, implementation & evaluation.
Learn more: https://ow.ly/TPNW50YmzVr
Under HR 1, states are facing massive new penalties if they over/underpay SNAP households due to administrative errors. But here's what's not considered an "error:"
- Delaying benefits due to processing backlogs
- Denying SNAP to eligible households
Quite an incentive structure!
In the wake of another horrific shooting death in MN by federal immigration officers -on top of wrongful detentions, violence, & fear there & across the country- it is appropriate for the Senate to use the budget process to push for critical protections for people & communities.
Today's recommended reading
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As the House nears a vote on extending the expired Premium Tax Credit enhancements, affordable health coverage is at stake. Our interactive map shows congressional district level estimates for rising out-of-pocket premiums faced by ACA marketplace enrollees nationwide: www.cbpp.org/research/hea...
This week, the House is expected to vote on a bill to extend the Premium Tax Credit enhancements. This would reduce 2026 premiums for the average #ACA marketplace enrollee by more than half, improving affordability for millions of people struggling with health costs. www.cbpp.org/research/hea...
@paulisci.bsky.social
By the end of the spring semester, Gwen reached a breaking point with AI. “I felt like I didn’t deserve to be a Yale student,” she said. She thought that she was throwing away her education and the scholarship paying to support it. She decided to quit using ChatGPT altogether. She didn’t ask AI to help her sentences flow or to strike the right tone. She didn’t even use it to brainstorm. “I think that’s a skill you need to have on your own. That’s the core of being original, anyway.” Gwen recalled completing her final assignments without AI, sitting in the middle of a crowded library so that she felt watched. “I struggled. And they weren’t very good.” It was only then, she said, that she started to understand just how much learning she had missed out on. ∎
New feature article from TNJ (nation's best student magazine): Inside Yale’s Quiet Reckoning with AI thenewjournalatyale.com/2025/10/insi...
Food assistance for low-income veterans isn't only at risk because of the shutdown. The Republican megabill's SNAP cuts specifically targeted veterans by eliminating their previous exemption from SNAP's harsh three-month time limit.
New working paper posted last week. This is one of my dissertation chapters, I estimate the effect of a major expansion of the federal EITC on measures of material hardship (it helps!). I’ll have a poster on this at #2025APPAM find me if you want to chat about it papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Groceries saw their biggest jump in nearly three years last month, a worrisome sign for inflation-weary shoppers. Tariffs are contributing to higher prices for imported staples like bananas and coffee.
Update on SNAP payments in D.C.: City officials tell me that the $30 million in local funds being used to cover SNAP will be fully paid out by next week. If federal funds start flowing before that, they may be able to make a swap and save some of the local funds being used.
Update: USDA revised their #SNAP contingency fund plan to provide households with a larger share of their November benefits. This is an important but inadequate step. Families need their full benefits to afford groceries & the Administration has the authority to provide them.
New data: CBPP analyzed USDA’s contingency fund spending plan & found it is only going to release 2/3 of the funding they committed to in court filings, cutting families’ SNAP benefits far more than necessary, violating USDA’s own regulations & shortchanging millions of families.
Trump Regime to Pay 50% of SNAP Benefits - SNAP Monday, 11/3 Matthew Cortland New Edit Today, the Deputy Under Secretary of the Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services (FNCS) at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) filed a declaration with the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island saying, in relevant part: The above will leave a total of $4.65 billion in the contingency fund for November SNAP benefits that will all be obligated to cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments.
To comply with court order, Trump Regime to pay out enough money to fund SNAP benefits at 50% for November.
More at www.patreon.com/posts/142745...
If you think your kids aren't old enough to hear about what's happening in this country, remember that there are millions of kids their same age who don't have that choice.
Families cannot afford further delays. The Administration must immediately release the contingency reserves and use their legal authority to transfer additional funds so families can get the full benefits they need to buy food as quickly as possible.
SNAP, the country's largest anti-hunger program, dates back to the Great Depression and has never been disrupted this way. Most recipients are seniors, families with kids, and those with disabilities. n.pr/48PNNIt
The Administration can and should take action immediately to ensure November #SNAP benefits go out on time. Nearly two-thirds of needed funds are available right now in the contingency fund. www.cbpp.org/blog/the-tru...
Not the point of the post, but it's extremely illegal for the Trump admin to not use the $6 billion in the SNAP contingency fund on benefits for November. In addition, USDA has broad transfer authority - like they used to make WIC whole - to help plug the gap (you need about $8 bn for the month).
The Administration is legally required to use contingency reserves to fund November benefits for the 1 in 8 Americans who need #SNAP to afford groceries, despite USDA Sec. Rollins’ claim that the Administration is unable to do so. My statement: www.cbpp.org/press/statem...
For DC, this combined with federal workers who are furloughed now needing to access the local food banks, will be devastating
Military members lined up at a food bank because Trump's shutdown means that people aren't getting paid.
This video from @scrippsnews.bsky.social is getting wide circulation on Instagram, which is where I downloaded it from Don Lemon's account.
Screenshot of table from IPUMS blog. Full text at link in post.
❗❗❗ You may have heard that USDA ended a long-running data collection on food insecurity and called it "redundant." Our friends @kcww.bsky.social and Isabel Pastoor at @ipums.bsky.social fact-checked that claim.
Read what they found:
blog.popdata.org/food-securit...
A new paper finds that "Relative to comparisons, mothers exposed to #RxKids saw improvements in hardship, mental health, and well-being," including reduced risk of eviction & screening positive for postpartum depression. ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/...
On Friday, Michigan's legislature approved a budget that allocates $270 million ($20 million from TANF + $250 million from the state's Healthy Michigan fund) to scale up #RxKids, the GI pilot that started in Flint, MI.
www.freep.com/story/news/l...
📣 I am recruiting PhD student(s) in Public Affairs (Fall '26) at the Humphrey School, University of Minnesota! Come join me to work on Development/ Labor/ Education/ Gender/ ECD/ Inequality - in a top-ranked, fully-funded PhD program! Details: www.hhh.umn.edu/doctor-philo... #EconSky #PoliSky
Premium tax credit enhancements help tipped workers, veterans, small business workers, farmers, and older people afford health coverage. Their premiums will soon spike and millions of them will lose coverage if the enhancements expire. (1/5)
The Trump Administration is defunding important surveys and undermining federal statistical agencies, suppressing data that would reveal the harmful effects of the Republican megabill’s deep cuts and leaving families’ struggles harder to track. www.cbpp.org/research/pov...
