SNAP benefits at risk under tightened work requirement rules
U.S. Department of Agriculture announces that nearly 700,000 food stamp benefit recipients will be dropped from program April 1. 
By Liz Skalka / The Blade
Wed, 04 Dec 2019 20:28:57 GMT
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A Trump administration rule tightening work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will likely cut food stamp benefits for some recipients in Lucas County.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday that nearly 700,000 SNAP recipients nationwide would be dropped from the program beginning April 1.
Under current law, able-bodied adults between 18 and 45 without dependents can only receive SNAP benefits for three months in a three-year period unless they’re working or enrolled in school or training for at least 20 hours a week.
But states with a demonstrable lack of jobs have been able to waive the time period in areas with unemployment as low as 2.5 percent — including in Lucas County, where unemployment was at 4.4 percent in October. The new rule sets the minimum unemployment rate at 6 percent, a threshold only three Ohio counties met in October in a state with 4.2 percent overall unemployment.
The waiver was expanded to Lucas and other counties recently in an effort to open the program to more participants in non-white, urban areas.
It’s unknown how many of Ohio’s 1.3 million food-stamp recipients, including those in northwest Ohio, will lose their benefits as a result of the change.
In total, 42 of Ohio’s 88 counties have received waivers for able-bodied recipients. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said it will know by the end of week where counties stand with the new policy.
The Trump administration contends the move would help move more people toward employment and self-sufficiency, and ultimately save more than $5 billion over five years. More than 36 million people nationwide receive food stamps in 2019 while employment is at a low of 3.6 percent. In 2000, when unemployment was at 4 percent, the program had 17 million recipients.
“Government can be a powerful force for good, but government dependency has never been the American dream,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in a news release. “We need to encourage people by giving them a helping hand but not allowing it to become an indefinitely giving hand.”
The new rule doesn’t impact seniors, children, pregnant women, or the disabled.
Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Food Banks, said the change will increase food insecurity among Ohioans.
“We can’t meet the demand for emergency food assistance now and approval of these rule changes will be further detrimental to thousands of Ohioans. This is a heartless approach that will only increase the food insecurity among populations that are suffering from a lack of services, opportunities and access to basic human needs,” she said.
Able-bodied SNAP recipients are often people working short-term or gig economy jobs, she added.
“It’s a very fluid population,” she said. “They may be on [food stamps] one month, and off the next.”
U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D., Cleveland), chair of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight and Department Operations, said Congress rejected a similar provision in last year’s Farm Bill.
“This is an unacceptable escalation of the administration’s war on working families, and it comes during a time when too many are forced to stretch already-thin budgets to make ends meet. The USDA is the Grinch that stole Christmas. Shame on them,” Ms. Fudge said in a statement.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) told reporters Wednesday, “I don’t understand the mean spiritedness of these billionaires in the White House and in the cabinet,” adding later in a statement: “These bureaucratic hoops will make it harder for thousands of Ohioans to put food on the table.”