The Trump administration wants to restrict the ability of “aggressive” states to evade the 90-day limit on food stamps to able-bodied adults, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue during a House hearing. Asked by reporters if other changes would be requested in food stamps, Perdue said he lacked the authority to block state waivers from the 90-day limit. He added, “I think you’ll see some good suggestions in the farm bill (and) in the budget coming out as well.”
In a rule dating from welfare reform a generation ago, so-called able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) are limited to three months of benefits in the three-year period unless they work at least 80 hours a month or spend an equivalent time in job-training or workfare programs. States can waive the 90-day limit when unemployment rates are high or there are insufficient jobs.
“States gave been fairly aggressive” in making benefit available for longer periods, said Perdue during testimony to the House Agriculture Committee, although the USDA is “doing everything we can to rein in the waivers.”
“That is one area I hope could be addressed in the farm bill…around the parameters” for waivers, said the agriculture secretary. The unemployment-rate trigger is fairly specific—a rate above 10 percent or a local rate 20 percent higher than the U.S. average for 24 months are two of the measurements that can be used. There is little definition of what constitutes insufficient jobs. “We don’t have any statutory authority to change these waivers,” Perdue said after the hearing.
House Agriculture Chairman Michael Conaway has said he wants to make “meaningful reforms” in the food stamp program, including stricter work requirements in the farm bill. The Democratic leader on the committee, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, said only 17 states do not have a waiver covering all or part of their territory. The jobless rate is the lowest since 2000 and the Labor Department said last week that wages were rising, an indication that the slow economic recovery from the 2008-09 recession was paying off for workers at last. Peterson said jobs are becoming hard to fill in his western Minnesota district.
Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern, a leading House defender of food stamps, said Conaway has kept secret his plans for the anti-hunger program and warned if the farm bill “eviscerates” food stamps, “this will mean one hell of a fight on the floor.”
The Trump administration is scheduled to release its budget proposal for fiscal 2019 next week.
As part of a proposed 25 percent cut in food stamp funding last year, the White House proposed a restriction of waivers to counties with an annual jobless rate exceeding 10 percent. The comments by Perdue at the House hearing were his strongest over the past three months in support of stricter time limits.
Peterson tabbed food-stamp waivers as an area for possible reform in the farm bill during a radio interview a month ago but said that radical changes would destroy the bill. During the hearing with Perdue, he cautioned that without care, “we’re going to get wrapped around the axle on (food stamps) like we did last time.” The House defeated the farm bill in 2013 when conservatives demanded the largest cuts in a generation in the program. It took months for lawmakers to re-assemble the legislation and enact it.
The think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities says there is little evidence that food stamp benefits deter people from seeking work. Participants received an average benefit of $128 a month at latest count, or $4.21 a day. Roughly 41.7 million people are enrolled in food stamps. Most are elderly, children or handicapped and exempt from the work requirements.
For a USDA explanation of food stamp benefits for ABAWDs, click here.