President Trump’s new spending bill narrowly passed in the House of Representative and has moved on to the Senate.
The bill includes cutbacks on federal funding for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), and was formerly known as food stamps. The bill would cut back almost $300 billion to SNAP over the next 10 years.
If you are an ABAWD, which stands for Able Bodied Adult Without Dependents, you need to be employed to use SNAP benefits. Without employment, you can only use SNAP for three months.
“We’ve got a lot of working poor already,” said Bart Logan, assistant director of Franklin County Jobs and Family Services. “They’re on SNAP because their jobs aren’t paying them enough.”
This bill would extend the age requirement for ABAWDs from 54 to 64. It would also restrict SNAP benefits for people with children ages 7 or older so that they would have the same requirements as ABAWDs. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that around 263,000 people in Ohio households with children could lose benefits.
SNAP already has a program called “SNAP Employment and Training,” which provides specialized support to people seeking employment. The overall goal of the program is to have recipients transition off SNAP benefits and support themselves financially, in which case they would receive a one-time payment of $1,000.
“The best approach to controlling costs in the program is to move work-age adults into better paying jobs where they do not need SNAP benefits or other public assistance,” said Jennifer Ellis-Brunn, director at Licking County Jobs and Family Services. “Ohio already has several programs assisting in this space, such as the Benefit Bridge and the SNAP E&T program.”
Ellis-Brunn thinks the big issue is a need for more training programs to help people gain better employment. The proposed changes would force people back into a cycle of going on and off SNAP benefits. Ellis-Brunn believes in working to help families with long-term self sufficiency and financial independence.
“These changes are going to force us back into a very antiquated transactional system of long ago where we’re just not able to perform the meaningful work that we need to do for these families,” Ellis-Brunn said.
This bill would also have states pay for much more of the program than they currently do.
The federal share of administrative costs would go from 50% to 25%, so states would handle 75% of the administrative costs. And a portion of that percentage would come from individual county governments. According to Ellis-Brunn, the change would cost the state of Ohio an extra $65 million per year.
These administrative costs don’t include the benefit money that’s on EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards, that are actually used to pay for food. The amount of money that states would have to pay for these cards will differ across the country, but it will be a change from the current system where the federal government covers 100% of these costs.
“The largest way that they reduce that federal spending is by what they call ‘cost sharing,’ but really is passing on costs to states,” said Logan.
