The White House proposed a $193-billion cut in food stamp spending over the next decade, achieved by restricting benefits to able-bodied adults and by having states shoulder 20 percent of the cost of the program. Jim Weill, of the anti-hunger Food Research and Action Center, said the cost-sharing plan “would make the program collapse” during economic hard times when states run short of money.
Borrowing from the president’s “America First” pledge during the campaign, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said the administration was proposing “the Taxpayer First Budget” for the fiscal year opening on Oct. 1. “We need people to go to work,” he said, in part to generate the 3 percent economic growth projected by the White House so it can balance the budget by 2027.
“If you’re on food stamps and you’re able-bodied, we need you to go to work,” said Mulvaney during a White House briefing. “We need everybody pulling in the same direction.”
Food stamps would provide 70 percent of an estimated $274 billion in cuts in a “reform the welfare system” package. The administration said it would tighten eligibility for food stamps through a work requirement for able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs), now generally limited to 90 days of benefits in a three-year period, and by requiring states to pay a share of benefits, as a spur to improve the program. Both provisions would be phased-in over time.
“They [states] do a better job than we do in recognizing where the program can be improved,” said Mulvaney.
The $193 billion in cuts would reduce food stamp outlays by 25 percent over 10 years. It is far larger than the $40 billion in cuts — the largest in a generation — proposed by conservative House Republicans in 2013. That proposal led to the first-ever defeat of a farm bill in the House. House Republicans voted repeatedly in recent years for big cuts in food stamps by converting the program into a block grant for states to operate.
Included in the 2013 food-stamp proposal was language to restrict eligibility for ABAWDs. The 90-day limit can be waived by states during periods of high unemployment and the limit does not apply to ABAWDs who work at least 20 hours a week or who are part of a job training or community service program for 20 hours a week.
Weill, the FRAC president, said the cost-sharing system proposed by the White House “would totally disrupt the [food stamp] program” at the state level and encourage states to muzzle participation in order to avoid a new demand on state revenue. At present, states share the cost of administering food stamps but the federal government pays for benefits. “It would make the program collapse on purpose” during economic downturns,Weill said. States would limit benefits or enrollment at the moment when needs were rising.
The premiere U.S. anti-huger program, food stamps help poor people buy food. Enrollment, and costs, rise during times of economic stress and fall as the economy recovers. Participation peaked at a record 47.7 million people at a cost of nearly $80 billion in fiscal 2013. Enrollment has declined to 42.3 million at latest count. Benefits average $125 per person per month.
Mulvaney told reporters that enrollment was “very elevated” eight years after the 2008-09 recession. “I think that raises a very valid question, which is, are the folks on [food stamps] that shouldn’t be?”
Most food stamp recipients are children, the elderly or handicapped. Around 4 million recipients are ABAWDs, say analysts. Sixty percent of households with children and an able-bodied adult that receive food stamps also report earnings in an average month, says the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Robert Greenstein, head of the think tank, said the White House would make states responsible for $100 billion in benefits now paid by USDA. “Other [food stamp] cuts would target the elderly, working families, and the unemployed,” he said.
“The evidence that stricter work requirements actually cause people to get jobs is mixed, at best,” said the analytical Wonkblog of the Washington Post. “In Kansas, which reinstated the requirements in October 2014, 40 percent of unemployed adults were still unemployed a year after being kicked off” of food stamps.