Tag: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Trump administration to introduce plan cutting food stamps for 750,000 people

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The Trump administration is set to announce a plan that would cut food stamp benefits for approximately 750,000 people, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. 

The plan, which is scheduled to be announced Wednesday, will make it more difficult for states to gain waivers from a requirement that beneficiaries of food stamps work or are enrolled in a vocational training program, according to Bloomberg, which cited sources familiar with the matter.  

The work or vocational training requirement applies to recipients who are “able-bodied” or those who are not caring for a child under six years old. Under the current guidelines, states can receive a waver for work requirements for those receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or its former name, food stamps, if its unemployment rate is at least 20 percent above the national rate, according to Bloomberg.   

The national unemployment rate was 3.6 percent in October.

The regulation was initially proposed in February, and the administration predicted that the rule would end benefits for 750,000 people in its first year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that the move would save $1.1 billion in the first year and $7.9 billion over five years.

A person familiar with the measure confirmed to Bloomberg that the finalized regulation will have a similar impact. States seeking waivers under the rule would have to meet the stricter standards by April 1.

The Trump administration and GOP allies have long tried to reduce food stamp programs and implement federal restrictions. House Republicans tried to pass similar restrictions to the new rule last year, but the legislation was never passed in the Senate. 

The measure, which will be published in the Federal Register Thursday, is one of the three proposals that the Trump administration has backed. The administration has also sought to adapt “the types of government benefits that automatically qualify families for SNAP,”  according to a study from the Urban Institute. It has also called for changing the “approach to calculating standard utility allowances.”

The three programs together would limit food stamps for an estimated 3.7 million people and 2.1 million fewer households, according to the Urban Institute estimate. 

The Hill has reached out to the USDA for comment. 

[The Hill]

Sidestepping Congress, Trump Administration Proposes More Work Rules For Food Stamps

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House Republicans couldn’t get stricter work rules for those who receive food stamps into law. So the Trump administration is attempting to sidestep Congress and add them anyway.

On Thursday, the Department of Agriculture unveiled a regulatory proposal to expand work requirements for those in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The proposed rule change makes it harder for states to waive work requirements in areas that have high unemployment, currently defined as 20 percent above the national average.

The USDA is calling for those waivers to be limited to one year, down from up to two years states can currently request. It also wants to slash states’ ability to “bank” waivers for future years and is pushing to restrict waivers under certain criteria where local unemployment is around 7 percent.

In all, the proposed rule could reduce areas that qualify for waivers by roughly 75 percent, according to USDA officials.

The change to the federal SNAP program, which is overseen by the USDA, comes on the same day President Trump is expected to sign the $867 billion farm bill into law.

“These actions will save hard-working taxpayers $15 billion over 10 years,” said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, adding that the proposed rule would also get Trump “to support a farm bill he might otherwise have opposed.”

Under current law, able-bodied adults without dependents — commonly referred to by the acronym “ABAWDs” — are required to work 20 hours a week or be in a job training program. An ABAWD is classified as someone 18 to 49 who is not elderly, a woman who is pregnant or someone living with a disability.

According to a USDA fact sheet, 2.8 million individual ABAWDs on SNAP rolls in 2016 were not working. If the proposed rule change from USDA is approved, roughly 755,000 would lose food stamp benefits as a result of the new waiver restrictions.

This is the latest push by the Trump administration to call for stricter work requirements as a way to move more Americans off public assistance and toward self-sufficiency, often pointing to the low unemployment rate, currently at 3.7 percent, as evidence jobs are available.

“This restores the dignity of work to a sizable segment of our population, while it’s also respectful of the taxpayers who fund the [SNAP] program,” Perdue said.

Farm bill negotiations were bogged down for months over work requirement provisions included in the House-passed version of the farm bill. Those provisions, supported by House Republicans and the president were eventually weeded out of the final bill.

Democrats on Capitol Hill lambasted the proposal, including Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, saying the change was “driven by ideology.”

“This regulation blatantly ignores the bipartisan Farm Bill that the president is signing today and disregards over 20 years of history giving states flexibility to request waivers based on local job conditions,” Stabenow said in a statement.

“I do not support unilateral and unjustified changes that would take food away from families,” she said.

Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Agriculture committee, cheered the administration’s push.

“This is an issue we took head-on in the House-passed farm bill, creating a road map for states to more effectively engage [able-bodied adults without dependents] in this booming economy,” Conaway said in a statement.

“I applaud the proposed rule and proudly stand with the Trump administration in demonstrating the importance of state accountability and recipient success.”

Once the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register, it will be open for 60 days for the public to comment.

[NRP]