New Work Requirements For SNAP Recipients Take Effect

By: Benjamin J. Hulac, Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON — New restrictions to the country’s biggest anti-hunger program went into effect on Monday, making food access more difficult for roughly 850,000 people in New Jersey.

Finalized on Monday, the restrictions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as “food stamps,” impose several new requirements on enrollees. Chief among them is a requirement to show and document that one has worked or volunteered a minimum of 80 hours a month.

Recipients may also be enrolled in training programs and meet the new requirements.

In writing the new law, the Republican-majority Congress also imposed new rules on vulnerable groups that have historically been exempt from work requirements. They include military veterans, people experiencing homelessness, young adults aging out of foster care, refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants with humanitarian protections.

Advocates and experts said the new requirements for federal programs will only lead to fewer enrollees. Elaine Waxman of the non-profit Urban Institute said people are already removed without the proper paperwork. “People fall off for administrative reasons,” she said.

Overall, the institute estimates the law cuts about $186 billion nationwide from SNAP over the next decade, and about 400,000 households in New Jersey could lose some or all of their program benefits.

The law will also shift between $100 million and $300 million in costs from the federal government to New Jersey’s taxpayers, according to the New Jersey Department of Human Services, and will cost New Jersey county governments $78 million in new expenses annually.

The cuts are the deepest in the history of the program that dates back to the 1960s “Great Society” under President Lyndon Johnson. At the time, it was a political breakthrough.

The new law is a product of Congress’ sharp split, including in New Jersey. New Jersey’s delegation to Congress split its votes on the law, with all three Republicans — Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd), Chris Smith (R-4th)and Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th) — voting for it and all New Jersey Democrats voting against it.

Average SNAP benefits, $6.20 a day, are not sufficient to cover a “modestly priced meal” in any of New Jersey’s 21 counties.

The Trump administration and Republican allies on Capitol Hill said passing the new law was critical to rooting out waste and fraud within federal programs, including SNAP and Medicaid, the health insurance system for the poor and disabled.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith is among the law’s supporters. “I think there’s a great deal of hyperbole about what the ‘workfare’ requirements will do,” Smith said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “I think they’re good.”

Smith said he was confident people enrolled in federal programs like SNAP and Medicaid will not lose their benefits due to the new law. “Women, small children, disabled persons, they will not lose anything,” he said.

Changes were underway this month in how SNAP is administered after funding for the program lapsed during the recent government shutdown and the Trump administration sued to block payments from reaching the public.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department oversees SNAP, said the interest in the program has given the administration a “platform to completely deconstruct the program.”

New details in the plan would come this week, Rollins said, and “make sure those vulnerable Americans who really need that benefit are going to get it.”

“And for all the rest of the fraudsters and the people who are corrupt and taking advantage of it — we’re going to protect the taxpayer, too,” Rollins said in the interview with Fox Business.

U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said the Trump administration undercut confidence in the program during the shutdown and by changing SNAP requirements.

“I think there’s a lot of confusion about what all this means,” Kim said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News.

“In general, among people that I talk to that are on SNAP, there’s such unease about just how fragile that system was for them,” he said of the program during the month-long shutdown. “They have every right to be concerned.”

During the shutdown, the president tried to halt money for national programs and cancel federal funding in Democratic-leaning regions of the country as a negotiating tactic with congressional Democrats.

“We saw a president that was willing to hold back funding for people who are hungry in this country to increase political pressure and leverage,” Kim said. “That was really shameful.”

Kim and other New Jersey Democrats, who had held out for legislation to lower health insurance costs, voted in November against reopening the government.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin and other Democratic attorneys general last week filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to nullify a new rule that bars legal immigrants, such as asylum seekers and refugees, from SNAP eligibility.

Andrea Hetling, professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, said people on public assistance, such as through SNAP, often are working or are trying to find work.

“Many individuals would prefer to be working,” Hetling said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “Often they’re experiencing some type of challenge, whether that’s kind of a long-lived or a short-lived one, that prevents them from fully engaging in the labor market right now.”

Such challenges could be serious events, she said, like homelessness, a physical disability or a mental health episode. Or it might be something milder like a lapse in seasonal work or the case of someone waiting for a job to start.

“For so many individuals who are not as securely tied to the labor market, jobs can fluctuate and your hours can get cut, and it can be seasonal,” Hetling said. “All of a sudden, you were working 30 hours a week, but now it’s only 15, and it puts you at a point where you can’t really afford things.”