House Republican leaders unveiled a 320-page bill that would cut federal spending by $130 billion in the new fiscal year, including wider application of a 90-day limit on SNAP benefits to people working less than 20 hours a week. Agriculture Committee chair Glenn Thompson, who has been muted in remarks about proposals to cut SNAP in the 2023 farm bill, said the leadership’s bill “is a sensible proposal” to rein in federal spending.
The GOP package, which includes an increase in the debt limit, would apply the 90-day limit for ABAWDs — able-bodied adults without dependents — to people ages 18 to 55, up from the current 18 to 49. The bill also would end the ability of states to carry over from year to year so-called individual exemptions from the time limit.
“The Limit, Save, Grow Act is a sensible proposal for raising the debt ceiling, which reins in federal spending and invests taxpayer dollars more wisely,” said Thompson in a statement.
SNAP would account for 80 percent of spending in the 2023 farm bill.
There was no immediate estimate of how many people would be affected by the higher age limit. Pointing to the possibility of a recession in the near term, Ellen Vollinger of the anti-hunger group Food Research and Action Center said, “This is not the time to tighten time limits.”
South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson, sponsor of a bill to raise the ABAWD age limit to 65, said the GOP bill “decreases unnecessary spending and increases opportunity for Americans.” Johnson, like other Republicans, describes the time limit as a work requirement that motivates SNAP recipients to find better-paying jobs.
The 1996 welfare reform law created the limit of 90 days of benefits in a three-year period for ABAWDs.
House Republicans made a similar proposal in the 2018 farm bill to end the carryover of individual exemptions but dropped it in the face of Senate opposition. Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow and Georgia Rep. David Scott, the senior Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, have said they will not accept SNAP cuts in the farm bill this year.
“My message to Speaker McCarthy: Pass a clean debt ceiling increase. And stop trying to screw around with food assistance for working families,” Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat and a leading House advocate of SNAP, said on social media.
The text of the House Republicans’ Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 is available here.