The work requirements for SNAP recipients proposed by House Republicans “would cause more than a million low-income households with about 2 million people — particularly low-income working families with children — to lose their benefits altogether or have them reduced,” said Robert Greenstein, the head of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “We really believe they need to go back to the drawing board,” saying the package is too poorly designed to be salvaged by amendment.
The House Agriculture Committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the farm bill drafted by its chairman, Michael Conaway of Texas. Its major feature is a reorganization of food stamps that would require “work capable” adults, ages 18 to 59, to work 20 hours a week or spend an equal amount of time in job training or workfare. States would be be given $1 billion a year to provide a job-training slot to every eligible adult. Conaway’s plan, backed by House GOP leaders, applies work requirements to more people than are now covered and tightens eligibility rules.
During a teleconference, Greenstein said the SNAP package was likely to backfire, increasing hunger, due to burdensome paperwork rules and inadequate funding for job training. “These are among the most poorly designed work-related proposals that I’ve seen and among the least likely to be effective. They are largely inconsistent with the research in the field.”
The center estimates that some 6 million to 8 million people would be subject to the work requirement, and 3 million of them would be assigned to job-training slots because they don’t work enough hours. States and SNAP recipients would have to check work records each month. A tardy report could mean the loss of benefits. High-quality job training and employment programs cost from $3,000 to $14,000 a year. The farm bill’s $1 billion would allow $300 a year for each work-program slot.
Welfare reform in the Clinton era included work requirements that were lauded for moving people into better-paying jobs. Greenstein said the gains were a result of the strong economy of the late 1990s, and that in the long term those work requirements increased the number of families in deep poverty without substantial overall gains in employment.
“This is a plan, I believe, that works,” said Conaway in an Agri-Pulse interview. “We don’t kick anybody off the program per se.” But, he said, in some cases eligibility will be terminated. The bill would eliminate the state option to allow people with income above 130 percent of the poverty line to receive food stamps. “We’re going to treat every family in America the same,” said Conaway.
The Center on Budget said around 200,000 households could be affected by the elimination of the state option. An additional 300,000 people could lose benefits under the farm bill proposal to end so-called broad-based categorical eligibility, according to an informal estimate given to Democratic staffers on the Agriculture Committee. Categorical eligibility allows people to apply for SNAP regardless of their assets. The CBO estimates the change would save $2.3 billion from its estimated five-year cost of $326 billion for SNAP. A similar amount, $2.4 billion, would be saved by requiring SNAP participants to provide their utility bills to state officials for use in calculating benefits rather than using a standard figure.
A million people are expected to disappear from SNAP over 10 years under Conaway’s plan, because they get better-paying jobs, don’t work enough hours, or drop out of the training program, according to Conaway aides. The CBO says SNAP caseloads are on the way down because of economic growth. It estimates enrollment will average 40.9 million people this year and 34.3 million in 2023, when the 2018 farm bill would expire.
To read the CBO “score” of the farm bill, click here.