The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), aka food stamps, keeps food in the pantries of 42 million Americans. But that number may soon shrink if House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway’s proposed farm bill becomes law. An analysis produced by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that about two million people will lose benefits if Congress enacts stringent new work requirements outlined by Conaway. Able-bodied SNAP recipients ages 18 to 59 with no children under the age of 6 would have to prove every month that they are working at least 20 hours a week or are enrolled in school, a requirement that adds hours of unpaid labor to an individual’s existing workload.

The bill, which Conaway will bring before the committee on April 18, also implements harsh penalties for families who make simple paperwork errors. The first error costs a household one year of aid. A second offense costs them a full 36 months of aid. The result would be more hungry families, on top of the 13.1 million households that already regularly experience food insecurity. This is, of course, an artificial scarcity; America is not in famine. Hunger is a political crisis.

SNAP is a vital program, but it is not as generous as it could be. “SNAP requires all working-age adults (with limited exceptions) to register for work and accept a job if offered,” CBPP’s analysts explained. “States can go further and impose very tough work requirements (up to 30 hours a week) and cut off benefits—including those for children in the household—to those who don’t comply.” The program also restricts individuals who are unemployed but able-bodied to three months’ worth of food stamps at a time.

Conaway’s bill would cut about $9 billion from the program in total, without providing much help for individuals who are looking for work. Despite its insistence on employment, it would only allot states $30 per individual for job training. Consider that against recent tax cuts that will cost an estimated $1.9 trillion over the next decade, and it’s clear that Republicans are trying to offset cuts for the wealthy and corporations by slashing SNAP and other spending programs. But the Republican justification for such policies contains an ideological component as well: a view of the poor that holds them responsible for their own poverty.

Work requirements for welfare, whether it’s food stamps or Medicaid, obscure the real, systemic difficulties people face when they’re looking for work. They also reinforce false narratives about the demographic characteristics of welfare recipients. Most households that receive SNAP are headed by employed adults, and include children. Conaway’s proposals don’t include a carve-out or loophole that exempts families from the consequences of these penalties. A single mother with three children between the ages of 6 and 18, for example, could make one mistake and cost her children food for a year.