Marisa Koontz is a law student at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. She is a guest contributor to this blog.
On June 3, President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, H.R. 3746 (also known as the debt ceiling deal), into law after weeks of negotiations. These negotiations took place under a pressure cooker of time, as after June 5 the United States would have defaulted on the nation’s debt. The resulting bill attempted to balance Republicans’ interest in reducing government spending with Democrats’ interest in funding essential social welfare programs. In these negotiations, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a mandatory program appropriated through the Nutrition Title of the Farm Bill, got caught in the crossfire.
The Nutrition Title represented 76% of the mandatory outlays for the 2018 Farm Bill and is expected to account for most of the Farm Bill outlays for the 2023 cycle. In anticipation of the 2023 Farm Bill, House Republicans sought to limit the costs of the SNAP program by expanding the work requirement for eligibility, a strategy that in practice has proven ineffective at increasing employment, and instead increases food insecurity, worsens health outcomes, and creates administrative and cost burdens for states.
The Work Requirement
All SNAP participants between the ages of 18-49 years old without children or disabilities (called Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents, or ABAWDs) are subject to SNAP’s work-reporting requirement. ABAWDs who do not qualify for an exemption must be working at least 80 hours per month or participating in 20 hours per week of a job training program to receive full benefits. If they cannot meet these requirements, they are only eligible for SNAP benefits for three months out of three years. The work requirement is intended to motivate able-bodied participants to participate in the workforce and cut costs of the SNAP program by preventing ABAWDs from receiving more than three months of benefits.
This requirement does little to encourage participants to work, but instead acts as a time limit on benefits and “effectively punishes individuals who are willing to work but cannot find a job or do not have a work or training program available to them.” Notably, 82% of SNAP households with an ABAWD included someone who worked in the year before or after receiving SNAP. Inaccurate stereotypes of SNAP participants have made the work requirement a hot-button issue for Republican welfare reform and contributed to its inclusion in the debt ceiling deal negotiations.
Changes to the Work Requirement
The first change to SNAP expands the work requirement to participants aged 50-54, who will soon become subject to the 80 hours per month, or 20 hours per week in job training work-reporting requirement. The expansion of the work requirement has been projected to place 750,000 SNAP participants aged 50-54 at risk of losing their benefits, with 225,000 projected to be cut from SNAP entirely.
The second significant change removed work-reporting requirements for three categories of participants: veterans, individuals experiencing homelessness, and 18–24-year-olds who have aged out of the foster care system. In total, expanding the work requirement to participants aged 50-54, and exempting three vulnerable groups from the work requirement will result in a net increase of SNAP benefits to 78,000 individuals.
The debt ceiling bill also reduces the amount of individual hardship exemption waivers states receive, which provides SNAP participants with an additional month of exemption from the work-reporting requirement. As part of the debt ceiling deal, states will receive a smaller percentage of these waivers, further limiting states’ ability to remove work-reporting requirements for vulnerable participants.
Effects on the 2023 Farm Bill
The current Farm Bill expires on September 30, and lawmakers are in the process of negotiating to hopefully reach a final agreement by the end of the year. The work requirement’s inclusion in the debt ceiling bill is promising for reaching a final agreement by this deadline, as previous Farm Bill cycles have been delayed due to negotiations over the SNAP work requirement. For example, in 2018, House Republicans sought, and failed, to expand work requirements up to age 59, which would have resulted in the loss of SNAP benefits for millions of participants. House Republicans may still attempt to alter SNAP work requirements during the Farm Bill process, but with the changes to eligibility from the debt ceiling bill, some lawmakers are looking to take the work requirement off the table. By removing work requirements from Farm Bill negotiations, Democratic lawmakers are hopeful to reach a final Farm Bill agreement in 2023, and without significant loss of benefits for SNAP participants.
The views and opinions expressed on the FBLE Blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of FBLE. While we review posts for accuracy, we cannot guarantee the reliability and completeness of any legal analysis presented; posts on this Blog do not constitute legal advice. If you discover an error, please reach out to contact@farmbilllaw.org.
Photo Credit: Edwin Remsberg
