Along with the much-criticized Harvest Box of nonperishable food for low-income Americans, President Trump proposed in his budget more stringent limits on food stamps for people who work less than 20 hours a week. House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway may go beyond Trump in his proposals to restrict eligibility and to channel millions of food-stamp recipients into workfare and job-training programs.
Conaway could release his draft of the farm bill as early as today — some sources say Wednesday is more likely — and stage a committee vote as soon as March 20. While Conaway has a 26-20 majority that should ensure passage of an unusually partisan bill in committee, “I don’t know if they will have the votes to pass it with just Republican votes” on the House floor, said Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the lead Democrat on the committee.
Trump’s package would reduce food-stamp enrollment (43 million at latest count) by 4 million, or roughly 10 percent. He would do it through changes that include fewer opportunities for states to provide extended benefits to able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) and by expanding, to age 62, the 90-day limit on food stamps for ABAWDs in a three-year period unless they work at least half-time.
By comparison, Conaway would reduce enrollment 8 million and use the savings, which could amount to $12 billion a year by one estimate, to “create a job-training bureaucracy,” Peterson said on the “Adams on Agriculture” radio program. Conaway also would increase the ABAWD age range to 65 years. “This has got my side all riled up,” said Peterson. “We could be on the path to a partisan farm bill.”
The House defeated a farm bill for the first time in 2013 when conservative Republicans voted for the biggest cuts in food stamps since the 1996 welfare reform law. It took months for Senate-House negotiators to assemble the final, and successful, version of the 2014 farm law, which called for a much smaller cut in food stamps.
Conaway has repeatedly faulted states, which run the food stamp program with federal funding and regulations, for not pushing hard enough for food stamp recipients to take full-time jobs or to move to better-paying or higher-skilled work.
“I can’t imagine how anyone would conceive states could do this,” said an anti-hunger advocate who was skeptical that states, in short order, could ramp up large-scale training and workfare programs. Most run relatively small education and training programs as an adjunct to food stamps. In 2016, only five states offered a slot in a job-training program or workfare to all ABAWDs at risk of losing food stamps because of the 90-day limit.
Although the national unemployment rate is down, “the labor market continues to feature a large number of jobs that provide low wages, no benefits, unpredictable hours and high rates of turnover that leave workers with periods of joblessness,” said the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Perspectives. “Most working-age adults on SNAP (food stamps) who can work, do so.” The 90-day limit already acts as “a harsh cut-off” for ABAWDs, “even on individuals actively looking for work or working less than half-time.”
Conaway also may adopt an element of Wisconsin’s recent overhaul of its food stamp rules by requiring able-bodied parents whose children are over age 12 to work at least 20 hours a week to receive food stamps, a source told Agri-Pulse. Wisconsin would apply the work requirement to able-bodied people with school-age children.
While the chairman would impose more stringent eligibility rules than Trump proposed, he would engage recipients in training and workfare far more than would the administration.
Meanwhile, a report from the Bipartisan Policy Center called for more coordination of food stamps and federal healthcare programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. If better nutrition were made a priority, it could pay off with lower costs for diet-related chronic diseases such as diabetes, said the co-chairs of the task force that produced the report. It recommends sugar-sweetened beverages be banned from purchase with food stamps and that larger incentives be offered for purchase of fruits and vegetables.
“Our hope is that our report will … lead to bolder reforms,” said co-chair Ann Veneman, agriculture secretary during the George W. Bush era. Another co-chair, Dan Glickman, who led USDA during the Clinton years, said there was strong bipartisan support in Congress for the food stamp program. The third co-chair was former Senate majority leader Bill Frist
A USDA description of ABAWD rules is available here.