The Trump administration saddled state officials with an unwieldy threshold for determining when they can provide SNAP benefits to able-bodied adults without dependents beyond the usual 90-day limit if they do not work at least 20 hours a week, said an Urban Institute report on Tuesday. The ABAWD rule affects nearly 700,000 people and was due to take effect on April 1 but was suspended by Congress during the coronavirus public health emergency.
“The new rule may limit the ability of states to secure waivers for individual counties and towns in periods of rising unemployment,” said the report. Under the ABAWD rule, waivers would be based on labor market areas and would require an unemployment rate of at least 6 percent and that is at least 20 percent higher than the U.S. average over 24 months. Alternatively, an area with unemployment of at least 10 percent over 12 months is eligible.
“Labor market areas are often quite large and the overall employment rate for LMAs may mask divergent economic conditions in a region,” wrote the Danielle Kwon, Nathan Joo and Elaine Waxman, the authors of the report. For example, they said, the New York-Newark-Jersey City LMA covers 20 million people living in 25 counties in three states.
Reliance on the labor market areas “may not adequately capture the difficult commuting patterns, lack of transportation or other barriers faced by low-income workers,” said the report. “Many of the affected areas have faced entrenched racial segregation and persistent poverty…Policymakers should have a clear understanding of these potential implications.”
The report, “Using labor market areas to determine ABAWD waiver eligibility limits SNAP’s local flexibility,” is available here.