U.S. lawmakers recently settled on a debt ceiling deal to avoid default. It includes some concessions GOP leaders wanted; one of them being work requirements for food assistance programs.
Right now people enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, ages 18 to 49 without children can only be eligible for the program for three months in any three-year-period.
That’s unless they can prove they’re working or volunteering at least 20 hours a week. This deal now increases those work requirements from age 49 to 54. That change comes just two months after families enrolled on SNAP lost an average of $90 per month, per person when a federal temporary boost to SNAP ended.
“We as food banks certainly are already unable to absorb the loss of $126 million per month in federally funded food assistance through the SNAP emergency allotments that ended,” Joree Novotny, the chief of staff at the the Ohio Association of Food Banks said. “So we are scared of not having enough food for the people who need to be able to count on us.”
Novotny said the work requirements change is just arbitrary and punitive because it forces Ohioans to take time out of their day, call a caseworker and report how many hours they worked a given week to keep their food assistance.
“People are struggling to get by. And it doesn't do what we think it does. It puts additional barriers on being able to report,” Novotny said. “It's not okay for us as a country to use people in poverty as our scapegoats.”
According to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, over 80,000 people in the state between the ages of 50 and 55 are enrolled on SNAP. The bill does exempt homeless people, veterans and young adults who’ve recently aged out of foster care from the work requirements.
Other SNAP advocates argue work requirements don’t work and lead to more people falling off of the program without increasing employment or earnings. A 2020 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found no evidence work requirements on programs like SNAP had a significant effect on employment rates.
GOP leaders and advocates for increasing work requirements argue the proposed changes would save the federal government billions over several years.
Rea Hederman, vice president of policy at The Buckeye Institute — a conservative Ohio think tank — said work requirements make sense, especially as employers seek skilled labor.
“There's been a long recognition that we need to make sure that people have benefits. But if you're a healthy adult, you know, you should be working to gain skills to make yourself better so that you no longer really need government assistance,” Hederman said.
The institute advocates for state leaders to increase funding for technical college and education programs that prepare students for the labor market. And keep more people working.
Congressional leaders have until June 5 to vote on the bill before
Alejandro Figueroa is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Support for WYSO's reporting on food and food insecurity in the Miami Valley comes from the CareSource Foundation
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