DES MOINES, Iowa — The Food Bank of Iowa is sounding the alarm while the fate of the President’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ sits in the United States Senate.

The concerns outlined by the organization are food insecurity and limited resources that food banks already have.

“We’re gravely concerned about the one big, beautiful bill act as written,” said Annette Hacker, Vice President of Strategy and Communications for the Food Bank of Iowa. “It stands to slash $267 billion with a ‘b’ from SNAP over ten years. And it takes 9.5 billion meals a year off of the table for people facing hunger.”

The bill has states pay for these federal benefits, in part, through a cost sharing method. Hacker said that this would be roughly $40 million a year the state would have to account for, which to her doesn’t feel possible.

The legislation also raises the age of SNAP work requirements to 65-years-old, extending those requirements to parents without children younger than 7-years-old.

“The crushing need this would create is not possible for the charitable food system, that’s us, to absorb. If you look at every Feeding America food bank in this country, of which Food Bank of Iowa is one of 200 and all the partners and pantries we stock across the entire country, that’s 6 billion meals a year distributed. This would be 9.5 billion more meals, a gap that would have to be filled. And the math just doesn’t work,” said Hacker.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley said that the goal is for the chamber to take it up on the Senate floor in the last week of June.

To volunteer or donate, visit the Food Bank of Iowa’s website.

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