The Case for Fixing Food Stamps Its work requirement is evaded, and states don’t share in its costs.
By: The Editorial Board
House Republicans are trying to sort out their policy differences on their budget bill, and the press is looking for fissures that could sink the bill. But that’s no reason to shun the harder issues, and one of them is the need to fix the dysfunctional federal food assistance program.
The House Agriculture Committee is shooting to save $230 billion over 10 years, and a big account is the roughly $100 billion a year Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Despite what you read elsewhere, Republicans aren’t indifferent to whether children and the poor have enough to eat.
But more than 41 million Americans are on food stamps, and the program long ago ceased to be temporary help for those who fall on hard times. Enrollment doesn’t shrink any longer in a strong economy as it should, and the rolls include millions of adults who can work. The program is contributing to one of America’s most pressing social ailments: Prime-age men attenuated from work and its attendant disciplines and contributions to society.
The program on paper requires that able-bodied adults without dependents work part-time or lose benefits after three months. Yet the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), a think tank, estimates that a mere 16% of these adults work 20 hoursa week or more. Government data suggests that only 28% of such adults have earned income.
That’s in part because states exploit waivers from the federal government to dilute the work requirement. States rely on old unemployment data and gerrymander regions to paint locales as scenes from the Great Depression. By one estimate, nearly 40% of these able-bodied adults without dependents live in areas where the work requirement is waived.
Congress can crack down on the waiver offenses and make work a centerpiece of the program in the tradition of the GOP’s 1990s welfare reform. The 20-hour work requirement also ought to apply to those who have children old enough to attend school.
Parents can fulfill the requirement during school hours, and job training or volunteering at a church checks the box. Anyone who thinks this is cruel should read the compelling academic evidence that growing up around adults who work is crucial for a child’s shot at upward mobility. See last year’s paper from economist Raj Chetty and colleagues.
But the food stamp dysfunction runs deeper. States manage the program but the feds pick up 100% of the benefits tab, which means states have an incentive to draw down more federal dollars. No wonder the program’s improper payment figure is north of 10%, according to Agriculture Department data.
Multiplepolicy analysts have proposals giving states a stake in the program, and President Trump’s 2018 budget included a version of the idea. Congress can ask states to pick up 10% of the benefits tab the first year, then 15% and perhaps eventually 25%. EPIC, the think tank, estimates the feds could save $250 billion over 10 years by phasing in a state share to 50%.
Governors of both parties won’t like a policy change that asks more of them. But states showed in the 1990s, after the federal welfare reform, that they could manage case loads and help people find their footing back into the private economy.
SNAP could use further reform because it discourages additional hours of workas recipients earn more income and lose benefits. But the White House is desperate to avoid anything that can be attacked as a “benefit cut,” and moderate lawmakers are anxious even about a state cost-share.
Democrats will attack Republicans as heartless if the GOP even touches the food program, so there’s nothing to gain from pre-emptive surrender. America’s food safety net should be fiscally sane and offer incentives so recipients won’t need it forever. If Republicans can’t defend these basic principles of self-government, they have bigger problems than passing a tax and spending bill.
