The Trump administration is proposing to further restrict eligibility for food stamps, even though it acknowledges that the proposed changes will cause millions of additional Americans to go hungry.
This is a continuation of longstanding efforts demonize the poor and to pretend that restricting benefits somehow makes some Americans less poor and less hungry.
Instead, the priority should be working to reduce hunger and poverty, which is one reason Congress rejected this proposal, which the administration now seeks to implement through a rule change.
“The American people expect their government to be fair, efficient, and to have integrity — just as they do in their own homes, businesses, and communities,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in a statement that accompanied the announcement this week.
This is true, but Americans also expect their government to extend help to those who need it, just as we do in our homes, businesses and communities.
Making life worse for an estimated 3 million Americans, many of them elderly, is a heartless tradeoff in the name of government efficiency.
Washington Post blogger Paul Waldman put it this way on Tuesday: “This is a story about government and budgets and bureaucracy, but it’s also a story about philosophy. One way to think about it is to ask this question: Which makes you angrier, a child going hungry, or someone getting a government benefit who might be able to do without it?”
Here’s the crux of the rule change: Currently, poor Americans in 43 states, including Maine, who qualify for other anti-poverty programs — such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families — can be automatically enrolled in the food stamp program, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Tuesday’s proposal would stop this practice and require those seeking food assistance to complete a separate application process, including an asset test, for SNAP.
We in no way condone fraud. USDA’s own website highlights SNAP quality control results, noting that in 2011 “over 99 percent of those receiving SNAP benefits are eligible and payment accuracy was 96.20 percent.” So it is hard to believe that millions of Americans are lying to get SNAP benefits, which average $1.40 per person per meal.
By the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s own assessment of the proposal, more than 3 million individuals would no longer qualify for food stamps, accounting for 5 percent of total SNAP benefits. Households with elderly individuals would be “disproportionately affected,” the analysis said.
In addition, “the proposed rule may also negatively impact food security and reduce the savings rates” among individuals who no longer qualify for SNAP. Requiring a separate application process will also likely dissuade some eligible households from participating in the program.
So, to “save” taxpayers about $2 billion a year (after accounting for more than $400 million in additional state and federal spending each year to process the new applications), the administration will leave more people hungry and further in poverty.
This is counterproductive. Nearly 12 percent of U.S. households are considered food insecure, which means that they had difficulty acquiring enough food. More than 7 percent have low food security, meaning they eat less or rely on food assistance. Both numbers have declined slightly in recent years, but all politicians should be outraged that millions of Americans go hungry each day.
Helping these people, not “closing loopholes,” should be the priority.