{"id":8972,"date":"2018-08-17T17:02:32","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T17:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8972"},"modified":"2018-08-17T17:03:18","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T17:03:18","slug":"work-requirements-could-backfire-for-snap-recipients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8972","title":{"rendered":"Work Requirements Could Backfire for SNAP Recipients"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A recent Johns Hopkins survey found that nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose cuts to SNAP, the program formerly known as food stamps. Photo: Maxpixel<\/p><\/div>\n

by Eric Galatas<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0As the U.S. House and Senate try to hammer out a final version of the Farm Bill, a\u00a0new report<\/a>\u00a0shows that increasing work requirements for people receiving SNAP benefits, the program formerly known as food stamps, would end up hurting millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute and the report\u2019s lead author, said the move proposed in the House version of the bill would not increase employment levels, and the additional requirements would be especially hard on people working in low-paying jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll have a lot of people trying hard to meet it, and they\u2019re just not going to meet it,\u201d Bivens said. \u201cAnd they\u2019re going to have their benefits taken away from them \u2013 really through no fault of their own, but just because the low-wage labor market does not provide steady, well-paid employment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bivens said most SNAP recipients who can work already have at least one job, but often can\u2019t get enough hours to meet the requirements. He added that most low-wage jobs don\u2019t come with family-leave benefits, so workers also risk losing jobs to care for a sick family member.<\/p>\n

Proponents of tougher work requirements claim SNAP and other safety-net programs create government dependency and encourage unemployment.<\/p>\n

Bivens disputes the notion that the average monthly SNAP benefit, $125 per person in food vouchers, is an incentive to stop working. He said the vast majority of recipients \u2013 seniors, children and people with disabilities \u2013 are not people most Americans would say should be forced into work.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf the people who are, you know, not in those groups \u2013 don\u2019t have a disability, are not retired, are not children \u2013 the majority of them who receive food stamps do work,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so this idea that we\u2019ve made this safety net too comfortable for people, I think, just radically over-estimates how generous it really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, SNAP recipients younger than 50 and without children or a disability must work at least 80 hours per month to get benefits. Under the House proposal, those younger than 60, even if they have young children, would lose benefits if they don\u2019t log at least 100 hours a month.<\/p>\n

A recent\u00a0Johns Hopkins University survey<\/a>\u00a0found nearly two-thirds of Americans are opposed to cuts to the SNAP program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Eric Galatas AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0As the U.S. House and Senate try to hammer out a final version of the Farm Bill, a\u00a0new report\u00a0shows that increasing work requirements for people receiving SNAP benefits, the program formerly known as food stamps, would end up hurting millions of Americans. Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8973,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8972\/revisions\/8973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}