As state waivers expire, about 1 million poor people will be cut off from food stamps or SNAP benefits over the course of 2016, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a Washington-based think tank. On account of a three-month limit on food stamps benefits, nearly one million unemployed adults between 18 and 50 years who aren’t disabled or raising minor children, will lost their food assistance.
While the three-month limit is not a new provision in the law, most states with high and sustained unemployment suspended it as the 1996 welfare law allows. But, as the jobless rate falls, fewer and fewer states will qualify for waivers, and a three-month federal time limit on nutrition assistance will kick in again.
And as for those who are looking for work but unable to find a job, the provision denies basic food assistance to those people by way of a severe time limit – three months – rather than a work requirement.
“We estimate that the number of states qualifying for state-wide waivers will fall to just a few states by 2016 and that approximately 1 million SNAP recipients will have their benefits cut off due to the time limit in fiscal year 2016,” Ed Bolen of the CBPP writes.
Bolen anticipates that the loss of this food assistance, which is approximately $150 to $200 for this group (unemployed adults who aren’t disabled or don’t have dependents), will likely cause serious hardship among many. According to the Agriculture Department (USDA), individuals subject to the three-month limit have average month income of approximately 19 percent of the poverty line, and don’t typically qualify for any other income support.
He suggests that Congress could revise this harsh rule to better accomplish its stated goal of testing individuals’ willingness to work. But that’s unlikely to happen.
“Consequently, states and local charities that work with this population need to prepare for the return of the three-month cut-off provision on a large scale,” Bolen says. “States need to be prepared to reinstate this complex rule properly and to engage stakeholders and prepare them for the consequences as substantial numbers of indigent individuals in their communities lose food assistance.”
As of September 2014, some 46.5 million people were enrolled in the food stamps program. That’s down from 47.2 million the previous year.
