The Trump administration will hold states accountable “for transitioning able-bodied [SNAP] recipients permanently into the workforce,” said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in an essay that underlined the White House call for new or tougher work requirements in federal welfare programs. “Too many states have abandoned this goal of self-sufficiency.”
Conservative Republicans are pushing for stricter work rules on two fronts: The loud argument in the House over requiring “work capable” adults to work at least 20 hours a week to get SNAP benefits and Perdue’s pursuit administratively of more stringent work standards. Perdue has repeatedly called for stricter rules, often phrasing them as a “tough love” prescription for self- and societal improvement.
Perdue and other critics say states too often take a lax attitude toward work requirements for SNAP benefits. Working-age adults are required to register for work and to accept a job if offered. States have the power to require recipients to work up to 30 hours a week and cut off benefits to those who don’t. But for years the focus has gone to so-called able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs). They are eligible for 90 days of benefits in a three-year period, but states can waive the limit and issue benefits for months longer during periods of high unemployment.
“This may have been the easy, short-term choice, but it contributed to a long-term failure for many SNAP participants and their families,” Perdue wrote in the op-ed, which appeared on Fox News on Friday. “Everyone who receives SNAP deserves an opportunity to attain self-sufficiency …The states are our partners in providing the nutrition people need, but we must also hold them accountable for transitioning able-bodied recipients permanently into the workforce.”
In late February, the USDA asked for public comments on how to reduce the availability of food stamps to ABAWDs. The idea is in line with President Trump’s budget package, which would reduce the ability of states to waive the 90-day limit and expand, to age 62, the ABAWD pool, which now covers ages 18 to 50. On April 10, Trump signed an executive order for welfare reform with its first action point of “strengthening existing work requirements for work-capable people and introducing new work requirements when legally permissible.”
Although they sound similar, “work capable” adults and ABAWDs are different groups. Work-capable covers a much larger group, up to 9 million people, according to the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The farm bill approved by the House Agriculture Committee on a party-line vote on Thursday would apply a 20-hour work requirement to work-capable adults, or require them to spend an equivalent amount of time in job training or workfare programs. States would get $1 billion a year to run the programs, triple the amount now provided for “education and training” activities that are a small part of SNAP.
Texas Rep. Michael Conaway, the Agriculture chairman, summarized the debate as “whether able-bodied adults should work or train for 20 hours a week,” a politically potent way to cast the question. Democrats agreed work is a vital step toward a higher income, but said Conaway’s plan was unreasonably rigid, requiring monthly reports from millions of people of hours worked, and woefully underfunded. “This process is all wrong,” said Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern, who peppered Conaway with detailed questions of how the revamped SNAP would operate. “The chairman says he wants to work with us. The fact is he didn’t.”
Sam Adolphsen, of the Foundation for Government Accountability, said there are more than 6 million job openings. “Nearly four out of five job openings require no training or less than a month’s training on the job,” he said, “and 87 percent require no prior experience.” He described the 20-hour requirement as a way of “getting able-bodied adults off the sidelines and back to work. For those that do need some training, the bill allows for employment training to be done through a number of channels, including existing employment services from federal agencies with ‘primacy in employment services.'”
The Center on Budget is less sanguine. Conaway’s plan will result in “sanction machines” at the state level to disqualify people for paperwork violations. “Moreover, the requirement is badly targeted,” the center argues. “Research finds that many of those who would be required to participate under this proposal would be employed again within a few months regardless of their participation in a work program.”