The President’s executive order to address food hardship is a strong response to families’ immediate hardship during the COVID crisis and takes an important step, consistent with congressional direction from the 2018 Farm Bill, to re-evaluate the adequacy of SNAP benefits in helping low-income Americans afford an adequate diet.

The sizeable revenue shortfalls and added costs that states, localities, tribal nations, and territories face due to COVID-19 call for added federal aid that’s temporary but significant.

Shortchanging the immediate substantial needs of the economy in the name of younger generations would be shortsighted and even self-defeating.

Alongside legislation to expand health coverage and make it more affordable, the Biden Administration can take administrative actions to reduce the uninsured rate, begin to address disparities in health coverage, and improve the affordability and quality of coverage for many people.