The
controversial reason tens of thousands of people just lost their food stamps, by Max
Ehrenfreund and Roberto
A. Ferdman, 4/1/16
As many as 1 million Americans will
stop receiving food stamps this year, the consequence of a controversial work
mandate that took effect this week in 21 states as the economy improves.
The revival of the mandate, which
was hotly debated when adopted in the 1990s, is reigniting a discussion among
policymakers and advocates for the poor about the fairness and wisdom of
the social safety net in the new U.S. economy.
The requirement, which generally
stipulates that participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP) who do not have children or a disability must find a job within
three months of receiving the benefit and work an average of 20 hours a
week, was suspended in most states following the mortgage crisis amid
widespread unemployment. Now, as jobs have returned, the work mandate was
automatically reinstated in many states at the beginning of this year, and the
three-month allowance for finding a job ended April 1.
Even where unemployment remains
relatively high, some governors have brought back the requirement, saying it
encourages people to rejoin the workforce.
The nearly two dozen states where
the rules are changing this week include Maryland, New York and Florida.
Seventeen other states have reinstated the work requirement in the past
couple of years. States with work requirements to take effect in 2016 include:
WA, ID, NY, MA, OR, PA, NJ, CT, MO, KY, WV, MD, AZ, AR, TN, NC, AK, MS, AL, GA,
FL. States that already had work
requirement include: ME, WI, VT, NH, MT, SD, IA, IN, OH, UT, CO, NE, VA, DE,
KS, OK, TX, HI. States with no work
requirement include: IL, MI, NV, RI, CA, NM, DC, LA
Federal officials say it is
impossible to know precisely how many people will be affected, but the Center
for Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning policy group in
Washington, has estimated that it could be tens of thousands this month and
as many as 1 million this year.
Critics say the 20-year-old mandate
is outdated in the new economy, in which steady manufacturing jobs are harder
to come by and employers are imposing erratic schedules on low-wage workers.
Falling unemployment rates can mask the reality for the working poor who
cycle in and out of unemployment, critics say, with the fluctuating hours and
irregular paychecks. "We've seen a long-term trend toward more
precarious job conditions for low-skilled workers," said Shawn Fremstad, a
lawyer at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "Even if you
get a job, you're not guaranteed more than 20 hours a week."
For the federal work requirement to
be waived, a jurisdiction must have an unemployment rate above 10 percent, a
rate 20 percent higher than the national average, or the local labor
market must qualify as weak by other measures. But governors can
reinstate the mandate even if the state economy meets that criteria, as
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) did this year. He chose not to extend the
work-mandate waiver, though the state's unemployment rate is 6.5 percent, among
the worst in the country. "We want people to go to work in Mississippi,"
Bryant said in a statement. "We want these individuals to get a good job
and live the American dream, not just be dependent on the federal
government."
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) made a
similar decision in 2013. Of the 13,000 Kansans who became ineligible for food
stamps after that decision, at least 64 percent found some work over the
next year and a half, according to an analysis of state data by the
Foundation for Government Accountability, a right-leaning think tank. Their
average income increased from about $4,600 a year, including the food
stamps, to about $5,600 a year.
But not all are able to find work.
Among those affected is Danny Lamb, a 41-year-old former factory worker in
Pittsburg, Kan., who said he has been spending his days filling out
employment applications for several weeks. He has no degree and two lame knees,
from injuries he suffered playing linebacker on his high school football team,
that restrict the kind of work he can do.
Recently, though, Lamb was deemed ,
and since his 8-year-old son lives with the boy's mother, Lamb legally has no
dependents. No employers have shown any interest in him.
"It's a messed-up situation.
Here you got people who really do depend on a little bit of assistance through
the state," Lamb said. "It seems like they really don't care if
somebody goes hungry or whatever."
The work mandate is the product of a
bipartisan compromise in 1996, when Republicans in Congress and President Bill
Clinton worked together on an overhaul of the country's welfare system.
Clinton signed the legislation
despite his objections to several specific provisions, including the one
requiring able-bodied adults to work. In a statement accompanying his signature
on the bill, Clinton said that it "fails to provide Food Stamp
support to childless adults who want to work, but cannot find a job or are
not given the opportunity to participate in a work program."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), who
helped author the work requirement as a congressman in 1996, is among the
conservative politicians arguing that able-bodied adults should not
receive SNAP benefits if they are not working. At the end of 2013, Kasich
decided not to request an extension of the statewide waiver of the work
mandate, enforcing the rule in all but the most economically depressed,
rural counties in Ohio.
A spokesman for Kasich, a candidate for
the Republican presidential nomination, said the reinstatement of the
requirement would prod people to seek work in the improving economy.
"These are, again, adults - no
dependents, physically and mentally capable of working," Rob Nichols, a
spokesman for Kasich's presidential campaign, said in a recent interview.
"Just as much as we believe in the social safety net, we also believe
it's a sin not to help oneself."
Opponents of the rule also argue
that work, especially on the margins of the economy, has become more unstable
since the mandate was first adopted. The number of people who are
involuntarily working part time has also increased, from roughly 4.3 million in
1996 to 6 million today.
A recent national survey found that
part-time workers' hours typically fluctuate from week to week. Among those who
said they usually worked between 20 and 24 hours weekly, a quarter of
respondents said they had worked as many as 30 and another quarter said
they had worked as few as 10. Roughly 4 in 10 workers who are paid
hourly are informed of their schedules less than a week in advance.
Finding those jobs often takes
several months. The average amount of time unemployed Americans spend looking
for work has declined from its apex in 2011 but is still more than six
months, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics - more than twice
as long as the time allowed in the work requirement.
"Making people hungrier isn't
going to make them find work faster," said Rebecca Vallas, managing
director of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American
Progress, a left-leaning think tank. "One of the most helpful things for someone
looking for work is helping them not worry about putting food on the
table."
In general, able-bodied adults rely
on food stamps only for short periods during spells of unemployment.
Three-quarters work in the year before or the year after they receive food
stamps, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities.
The number of food-stamp recipients without
children in the household or without a disability increased from 1.7 million in
2007 to 4.9 million in 2013 as the economy soured and the Obama administration
waived the rule throughout most of the country.
In 2014, the most recent year for
which data is available, the number decreased modestly to 4.7 million - partly
an indicator of an improving labor market and partly a result of the
reinstatement of the work mandate in a few states.
"One of the solutions the
government has put out there is telling people to go to their local food bank,
but we don't have the resources to step in in place of the government,"
said Margarette Purvis, president of the Food Bank for New York City.
In New York state, where the cuts
are expected to be among the largest, as many as 45,000 people were expected to
become ineligible to receive food stamps on Friday, according to the
food-bank group. In Manhattan alone, as many as 3,000 low-income
adults were expected to find themselves without a food safety net as the
month began.
Those 45,000 people would have
received an equivalent of about 26 million meals over the course of the year,
according to the estimates by the charity organization. For Purvis, the fear is
not only that many of them will not manage to find work - it's that they won't
be able to eat, either. "This whole thing is not about whether or not they
need food," she said. "That's a big problem. These people desperately
need the help."
Max Ehrenfreund writes for Wonkblog
and compiles Wonkbook, a daily policy newsletter. You can subscribe here. Before joining The Washington Post, Ehrenfreund wrote for
the Washington Monthly and The Sacramento Bee.
Roberto A. Ferdman is a reporter for
Wonkblog covering food, economics, and other things. He was previously a staff
writer at Quartz.
Comments
Obama
tightened food stamps so he could blame it on Trump next year. Obama’s destruction of the US is through and
complete. Remember to thank a Democrat.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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