The debt-ceiling deal struck by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the weekend contains many compromises for both Republicans and Democrats. Some may be harder to stomach than others. Chief among them: changes to the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food-stamp program.
“The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, a default, for the first time in our nation’s history, takes the threat of a catastrophic default off the table,” Biden said on Sunday evening. It remains to be seen whether the agreement — which increases work requirements for SNAP recipients, as well as an expansion of SNAP access to veterans and people who are homeless and young adults transitioning from foster care — will pass Congress.
Formerly known as the food stamp program, SNAP aims to help lower-income households to pay for nutritious food. But just how many working Americans receive food stamps?
A report released this year by the Department of Agriculture found that among all families that rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to feed their families, 42% lived in households with earned income in fiscal year 2019. “That was up from 30% in 1996, when passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act placed more emphasis on work for public assistance recipients,” the report said.
More than 70% of families who are eligible for SNAP benefits and who participated in the program had at least one person working in that household, while 82% of all households nationwide eligible to receive SNAP benefits participated in the program, the USDA report found.
The number of working households eligible to participate in SNAP and who participated in the program also varies by state. Some 94% of eligible households in Pennsylvania with at least one working person participated in the program versus 92% in Illinois and 90% in Oregon. But that percentage fell to 59% in California.
The Census Bureau estimates that 12% of the 79 million families in the U.S. received SNAP benefits at some point in the previous 12 months.
“While the majority of SNAP participants are children, elders and people with disabilities and are not expected to work, workers with unstable jobs and low pay also rely on SNAP benefits.”
“Of the 3.4 million married-couple families receiving SNAP benefits, 84% had at least one worker. Nearly half (49%) had two or more workers,” it said. “These data show that SNAP provides nutritional support for many U.S. working families. Millions of workers use SNAP to supplement low wages and meet their families’ basic nutritional needs.”
More than 42 million people participated in SNAP each month, the latest USDA figures show, up from 35 million people in 2019.
While the majority of SNAP participants are children, elders and people with disabilities and are not expected to work, workers with unstable jobs and low pay also rely on SNAP benefits, researchers say. Many eligible participants turn to SNAP temporarily when they suffer a job loss, experience a family crisis, or even add a new family member to the household.
The federal program helps low-income families put food on their tables by providing monthly benefits to supplement a family’s food budget. Every month, families receive the benefits through an EBT or electronic benefits transfer card and use it at checkouts in grocery stores, supermarkets, convenience stores and sometimes, eligible farmers markets. The program recently enabled online checkouts.
The latest debt ceiling deal changed the working age limit from 54 and below to 49 and below. Those who are “able-bodied” and do not have children that meet the age limit must work or participate in a training program for at least 80 hours a month to receive monthly SNAP benefits, or they can only receive benefits for three months in three years.
The provision could take food assistance away from large numbers of people without increasing employment or earnings, Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank, said in a statement. “The agreement puts hundreds of thousands of older adults aged 50-54 at risk of losing food assistance, including a large number of women.”
Related: A divided Congress spells uncertainty for food-aid programs — and millions of low-income Americans
This story originally appeared on Marketwatch
