Food-stamp participation is down for the second year in a row, with further reductions forecast in coming year, says the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “For more than two years, fewer people have participated in [food stamps] each month than in the same month one year earlier,” say CBPP analysts Dottie Rosenbaum and Brynne Keith-Jennings.
Enrollment in the food-stamp program, the major U.S. anti-hunger program, surged after the 2008-09 recession, leading to complaints by Republican lawmakers that the program was out of control. While the economic recovery has been sluggish, the outlook for food stamps is far different than a couple of years ago.
An average 45.767 million people received benefits in fiscal 2015, a drop of 4 percent from the record 47.636 million people in 2013, according to USDA data. Spending also has declined; costs in fiscal 2015 were $6 billion, or more than 7 percent below the peak of $80 billion in fiscal 2013. At latest count, 45.454 million people were enrolled.
The declines, which track the projections of the CBO and other experts, come at the same time the Republican-controlled House Agriculture Committee is conducting a top-to-bottom review of the program, possibly with an eye to revising it as part of the 2018 farm bill. And Chairman Robert Aderholt of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the USDA has filed a bill, HR 4540, to allow states to require food stamp recipients to take tests for illegal drug use. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the tests would be unfair and unproductive. Some researchers say drug-testing of welfare recipients has found few violators.
““The goal is not only to break welfare recipients’ dependence on government programs but also on their addiction to drugs,” said Aderholt, an Alabama Republican, in a statement about his bill, which had one co-sponsor when filed. Aderholt decried the large increase in food-stamp enrollment since the recession. “This is meant to be temporary assistance, not a way of life. Many major employers and small businesses require applicants to pass a drug test, this bill will ensure that welfare recipients are job-ready.”
Aderholt’s bill would allot $600 million a year, from fiscal 2017-22, for drug treatment programs. The cost apparently would be offset by reducing food-stamp benefits to people who also take part in a federal heating-assistance program.
Republicans unsuccessfully tried to include drug testing of food stamp recipients in the 2014 farm law, which included the food-stamp program. They also proposed $39 billion in food-stamp cuts by restricting eligibility. The provisions were dropped in the face of opposition by Senate Democrats.
In its most recent budget projections, the CBO says food-stamp spending will be roughly $7 billion lower than it forecast for the five-year life of the 2014 farm law due to lower enrollment. The CBO projects enrollment of 41.1 million people during fiscal 2018.
Wisconsin sued the USDA last year because Gov. Scott Walker wants to start a drug-testing program for food stamps.