Washington
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday proposed a rule that would restrict the ability of states to exempt work-eligible adults from having to obtain steady employment to receive food stamps.
The move comes the same day that President Donald Trump signed an $867 billion farm bill that reauthorized agriculture and conservation programs while leaving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves roughly 40 million Americans, virtually untouched.
Passage of the farm bill followed months of tense negotiations over House efforts to significantly tighten work requirements and the Senate’s refusal to accept the provisions.
Currently, able-bodied adults ages 18-49 without children are required to work 20 hours a week to maintain their SNAP benefits. The House bill would have raised the age of recipients subject to work requirements to 59 from 49 and required parents with children older than 6 to work or participate in job training. The House measure also sought to limit circumstances under which families that qualify for other poverty programs can automatically be eligible for SNAP.
None of those measures made it into the final farm bill despite Trump’s endorsement. Now the administration is using regulatory rulemaking to try to scale back the SNAP program.
Work-eligible able-bodied adults without dependents, known as ABAWDs, currently can receive only three months of SNAP benefits in a three-year period if they don’t meet the 20-hour work requirement. But states with an unemployment rate of 10 percent or higher or a demonstrable lack of sufficient jobs can waive those limitations.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the proposed rule is a trade-off for Trump’s support of the farm bill, which Trump signed on Thursday.