The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently approved a proposal made in February 2019 that will establish more stringent federal work requirements to determine eligibility to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as the food stamp program. Passed on Dec. 3, this new rule will require able-bodied adults without children to carry out certain requirements. It will eliminate nearly 700,000 individuals from the food stamp program.

Under the Trump administration, the department has maintained that the economy has improved and “assistance to unemployed, able-bodied adults was no longer necessary in a strong job market.” 

This change is expected to cut $5.5 billion food stamp spending over the next five years. 

Sonny Perdue, the Agriculture Secretary, stated, “We need to encourage people by giving them a helping hand but not allowing it to become an indefinitely giving hand.” 

Under the USDA system, childless, able-bodied individuals aged 18 to 49 must work at least 20 hours a week for more than 3 months over a 36-month period to qualify for food stamps. However, according to the New York Times, many states have waived the labor requirements in “areas that have insufficient jobs or a 24-month average unemployment rate that is at least 20% above the national average.”

The new rule will restrict states from granting waivers to only areas “that have a 6% unemployment rate or higher,” as stated by NBC News. To put it into perspective, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the national unemployment rate as of October 2019 was 3.6%.

Anti-poverty groups have expressed opposition to the new rule on the grounds that unemployment rates are misleading. Stacy Dean, the Vice President for Food Assistance Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, explained, “The overall unemployment rate is really a measure of the whole labor market and not people without a high school diploma who are incredibly poor and may lack transportation.” She adds, “We’re talking about a different group who just face a very different labor market.”

This rule is the first of three that will cause millions to lose their benefits. The New York Times reports “more than 140,000 public comments were submitted” after the rule was finalized, most “overwhelmingly negative.” Senate Minority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, expressed, “The Trump administration is driving the vulnerable into hunger… It is heartless. It is cruel. It exposes a deep and shameful cruelness and hypocrisy in this administration.”

One of the three proposals in particular received 75,000 mostly negative comments. The proposal will eliminate a loophole that allowed individuals “with incomes up to 200% of the poverty level—about $50,000 for a family of four—to receive food stamps,” according to the New York Times. However, it will also prevent households with over $2,250 in assets, or $3,500 for households with a disabled adult, from qualifying to receive food stamps. The department estimates these “changes [will] strip nearly 3 million people of their benefits… and nearly 1 million children [will] lose automatic eligibility for free or reduced-price school meals.” 

The final proposal will cut $4.5 billion from the program over five years “by adjusting eligibility formulas.”

As hundreds of thousands are expected to adjust to the SNAP program’s new requirements, many will lose their benefits. Disabling food stamps to the million children and struggling families, the proposals have received thousands of protest letters and negative feedback.

Graphic courtesy of CNN.COM