What Happened When a State Made Food Stamps Harder to Get

[Edge-]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/u...-virginia.html

MILTON, W.Va. — In the early mornings, Chastity and Paul Peyton walk from their small and barely heated apartment to Taco Bell to clean fryers and take orders for as many work hours as they can get. It rarely adds up to a full-time week’s worth, often not even close. With this income and whatever cash Mr. Peyton can scrape up doing odd jobs — which are hard to come by in a small town in winter, for someone without a car — the couple pays rent, utilities and his child support payments.

Then there is the matter of food.

“We can barely eat,” Ms. Peyton said. She was told she would be getting food stamps again soon — a little over two dollars’ worth a day — but the couple was without them for months. Sometimes they made too much money to qualify; sometimes it was a matter of working too little. There is nothing reliable but the local food pantry.

Four years ago, thousands of poor people here in Cabell County and eight other counties in West Virginia that were affected by a state policy change found themselves having to prove that they were working or training for at least 20 hours a week in order to keep receiving food stamps consistently. In April, under a rule change by the Trump administration, people all over the country who are “able-bodied adults without dependents” will have to do the same.

The policy seems straightforward, but there is nothing straightforward about the reality of the working poor, a daily life of unreliable transportation, erratic work hours and capricious living arrangements.

Still, what has happened in the nine counties in West Virginia in the last four years does offer at least an indication of how it will play out on a larger scale.

The most visible impact has been at homeless missions and food pantries, which saw a big spike in demand that has never receded. But the policy change was barely noticeable in the work force, where evidence of some large influx of new workers is hard to discern. This reflects similar findings elsewhere, as states have steadily been reinstating work requirements in the years since the recession, when nearly the whole country waived them.

Since 1996, federal law has set a time limit on how long able-bodied adults could receive food stamps: no more than three months in a three-year period, if the recipient was not working or in training for at least 20 hours a week. But states have been able to waive those rules in lean times and in hurting areas; waivers are still in place in roughly one-third of the country.

Under the new rule from the Trump administration, most of these waivers will effectively be eliminated. By the administration’s own estimate, around 700,000 people will lose food stamps. Officials say that there are plenty of jobs waiting for them in the humming economy.

This was the thinking as West Virginia began lifting waivers four years ago, starting in the counties where unemployment rates were lowest.

One of the first signs of the change came in the dining hall of the Huntington City Mission, about half an hour’s drive from little Milton. Suddenly, the hall was packed.

“It was just like, ‘Boom, what’s going on here?’” said Mitch Webb, the director of the 81-year-old mission. In early 2016, the mission served an average of around 8,700 meals a month. After the new food stamp policy went into full effect, that jumped to over 12,300 meals a month. “It never renormalized,” Mr. Webb said.

That was true all around Huntington.

“A few years ago, at the first of the month we would be slow and toward the end of the months we would be busy,” said Diana Van Horn, who runs the food pantry at Trinity Episcopal Church. “Now we are busy all the time.”

Cynthia Kirkhart, who runs Facing Hunger, the main food bank in the region, said people started just showing up at the warehouse, asking if they were handing out food. There was no telling where else they were now turning. “People who are surviving do not approach the world the same way as people who are thriving,” she said.

That the number of people receiving food stamps would drop significantly was, of course, by design. The question was what would become of them.

According to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, a research group that focuses heavily on social safety-net issues, there was no evidence of a big change in the job market. While around 5,410 people lost food stamps in the nine counties, the growth in the labor force in these counties over the ensuing three years significantly lagged the rest of the state. Average monthly employment growth in the counties actually slowed, while it nearly doubled in the rest of West Virginia.

“We can prove it from the data that this does not work,” said Seth DiStefano, policy outreach director at the center.

The state Department of Health and Human Resources initially acknowledged as much. “Our best data,” it reported in 2017, “does not indicate that the program has had a significant impact on employment figures.”

In an email message last week, a spokeswoman for the department said that the available data “does not paint a clear picture of the impact” of the changes on employment in the nine counties.

Delegate Tom Fast, a Republican lawmaker who sponsored a bill in 2018 that restored work requirements for food stamps statewide, said he considered the policy a success. “The information I have is that there’s been significant savings over all,” he said, coupling that with a low unemployment rate as evidence that the policy was working.

“If a person just chooses not to work, which those are the people that were targeted, they’re not going to get a free ride,” he said. Of people who are facing concrete obstacles to steady work, like a lack of transportation, he added: “If there’s a will, there’s a way.”

This is a popular sentiment, even among those who have had to rely on food stamps. The Peytons expressed little sympathy for people “just getting things handed to them.” At dinnertime at the city mission, men complained about people who were too lazy to work, who were sponging off the system.

“Not giving people food stamps because they don’t work is probably the best course of action,” said Zach Tate, who had been at the mission before, but now, with a place to stay, was just back for a meal. “It’s like training a puppy.”

He returned to his turkey Alfredo for a few moments and then clarified.

“But taking it away indefinitely doesn’t work either,” he said. “It creates a sense of despair.”

To move from talk of what is right policy to the reality of daily life is to enter a totally different conversation, one about the never-ending logistics of poverty: the hunt for space in a small house with 10 other people, the ailing family members who are wholly dependent without technically being “dependents,” the tenuousness of recovery while living among addicts, the hopelessness of finding decent work with a felony record.

One man in Milton spoke of losing a job loading trucks when the employer looked up his bad credit report. A woman who lives some miles out in the country said it was nearly impossible to work as a waitress in a town when the last bus comes and goes at 7 p.m.

“You see people in these hills around here that can’t get out to a job because they have no vehicle,” said Jerome Comer, 47, who left rehab last year and is now working in the warehouse of Facing Hunger. “You say, ‘Well, they’re able-bodied Americans.’ Yeah, but they live 40 miles out in the holler. They can’t walk to McDonald’s.”

Mr. Comer had been raised by a disabled mother reliant on food stamps and had relied on government assistance himself when he was a younger man with a family, even though he was working two jobs. That is the thing: Most working-age adults on food stamps are either already working or are between jobs.

But the jobs are unstable and inconsistent — as in the Peytons’ case, paying too much to qualify for benefits one month, offering too few hours to qualify the next. That is the root of the problem, Mr. Comer said. But addressing it would be a lot more expensive than food stamps.

“If they could come up with a work program for these people to give them jobs and transportation and everything, I’d agree with that,” Mr. Comer went on. “If you’re an able-bodied American and you ain’t got a job and they’re going to give you one and give you the means to get back and forth to it, that’s great. But then what’s that going to cost you?”

TLDR: Welfare/foodstamp work requirements still don't work, and don't have any meaningful impact on employment. Their usual effect is kicking people out of those programs and pushing them to food pantries and other charities.

As with the Kansas "supply side economics" experiment, it's another major failure for what is a pretty major Republican policy talking point.

[smityx]

Normal republican policy towards the sick or poor.
If you are sick or poor. Die quickly.

[Blur4stuff]

Republican position on this issue has always baffled me. For decades republicans have been hugging the bible and pretending to be the best examples of christians or by better known code word/phrases like 'family values'. One of the most well known, most repeated, and taught bible lesson is Jesus feeding the many. He didn't ask them if they were citizens. He didn't ask for payment. He saw hungry people and fed them.

The US should do the exact opposite of what republicans are doing, in my opinion. Expand SNAP. It should automatically cover everyone that's middle class and poor by default. No signing up. No qualifying. If you aren't well off (based on location) then you get food regardless of everything else. Having said that I also think what SNAP can buy should be altered in some way to encourage smarter eating. But, even then it has to adjust for people who live in food deserts.

[Daelak]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/u...-virginia.html



TLDR: Welfare/foodstamp work requirements still don't work, and don't have any meaningful impact on employment. Their usual effect is kicking people out of those programs and pushing them to food pantries and other charities.

As with the Kansas "supply side economics" experiment, it's another major failure for what is a pretty major Republican policy talking point.

Which has been the same "talking point" since conservatives introduced "welfare reform" and "financial stewardship" over federal funds to social programs right after desegregation and medicare/medicaid were made available to minorities.

[Masark]

Their usual effect is kicking people out of those programs and pushing them to food pantries and other charities.

That's the general idea. And as those are private charities, they can withhold help to anyone they consider inferior, like say, minorities or people who don't follow the Right Religion, which government couldn't.

[GreenJesus]

That's the general idea. And as those are private charities, they can withhold help to anyone they consider inferior, like say, minorities or people who don't follow the Right Religion, which government couldn't.

Do you honestly believe that there are charities that block black people from receiving help?

[Edge-]

Do you honestly believe that there are charities that block black people from receiving help?

Not that I know of, but I'm sure some exist. But charity groups and orphanages continually end up in legal battles to protect their "right" to discriminate against and deny service to LGBTQ+ folks. These groups have repeatedly sued to try to "protect" their "legal right" to discriminate.

[GreenGoldSharpie]

Not that I know of, but I'm sure some exist. But charity groups and orphanages continually end up in legal battles to protect their "right" to discriminate against and deny service to LGBTQ+ folks. These groups have repeatedly sued to try to "protect" their "legal right" to discriminate.

A lot of them are using tax dollars to do so too.

[Captain N]

A lot of them are using tax dollars to do so too.

And going so far with their bullshit about "Religious Freedom" that the SCOTUS keeps handing them victory after victory when it comes to dealing with the LGBTQ community.

[GreenGoldSharpie]

And going so far with their bullshit about "Religious Freedom" that the SCOTUS keeps handing them victory after victory when it comes to dealing with the LGBTQ community.

That's going to continue for a good while going forward. The thing is it's also going to mean less and less. The religious right's stand is entirely based on institutionalism precisely because they lost the culture war. It's now a question of how many people they get to hurt before they fade into irrelevance.

[Orlong]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/u...-virginia.html



TLDR: Welfare/foodstamp work requirements still don't work, and don't have any meaningful impact on employment. Their usual effect is kicking people out of those programs and pushing them to food pantries and other charities.

As with the Kansas "supply side economics" experiment, it's another major failure for what is a pretty major Republican policy talking point.

Thats what food pantries are for. Let the people voluntarily donate to the lazy ass able bodied people who refuse to work instead of making every hard worker pay for their food through taxes. There are at least part time jobs everywhere. Businesses are fighting for burger flippers and retail workers, and warehouse workers (who make good money). Hell there isnt a day go by that I dont hear at least 10 ads for Amazon and Chewy looking for people to pick orders for $13 an hour and up with raises after 90 days and benefits. (But those jobs are too hard for millenials to do. Might actually break a sweat). Hell ive even seen businesses asking for help on craigslist and facebook

[Captain N]

That's going to continue for a good while going forward. The thing is it's also going to mean less and less. The religious right's stand is entirely based on institutionalism precisely because they lost the culture war. It's now a question of how many people they get to hurt before they fade into irrelevance.

If they get their way they'll set the rights of the LGBTQ and women back at least 50 years. Their whole goal these days is to stuff the gays back in the closet and put the women back in the kitchen. That's a pretty decent chunk of people that have to take a hit.

[Edge-]

Thats what food pantries are for. Let the people voluntarily donate to the lazy ass able bodied people who refuse to work instead of making every hard worker pay for their food through taxes. There are at least part time jobs everywhere. Businesses are fighting for burger flippers and retail workers, and warehouse workers (who make good money). Hell there isnt a day go by that I dont hear at least 10 ads for Amazon and Chewy looking for people to pick orders for $13 an hour and up with raises after 90 days and benefits. (But those jobs are too hard for millenials to do. Might actually break a sweat)

“If a person just chooses not to work, which those are the people that were targeted, they’re not going to get a free ride,” he said. Of people who are facing concrete obstacles to steady work, like a lack of transportation, he added: “If there’s a will, there’s a way.”

https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-a...-unstable-jobs

Most Working-Age SNAP Participants Work, But Often in Unstable Jobs

It's a convenient sentiment for justifying letting people starve so they can sleep easily at night, but unfortunately it's never been backed up by any data to support it.

[Orlong]

And going so far with their bullshit about "Religious Freedom" that the SCOTUS keeps handing them victory after victory when it comes to dealing with the LGBTQ community.

There is an easy solution for you. You could just stop wearing your I am gay necklace everywhere you go and they would never know. But too many in the LBGT community cant just be happy being themselves, they have to make it a point to make sure everyone else knows it too either by dressing in an over the top flamboyant way, or just wearing clothing with insignia like the rainbow flag.

[Edge-]

You could just stop wearing your I am gay necklace everywhere you go and they would never know.

"Pretend you're someone else and not who you are because it might offend bigots."

Strong argument there, Orlong.

And most gay folks don't walk around with dildo's strapped to their heads every day. Most, believe it or not, are nigh indistinguishable from the rest of us straight folks walking around.

But too many in the LBGT community cant just be happy being themselves, they have to make it a point to make sure everyone else knows it too either by dressing in an over the top flamboyant way, or just wearing clothing with insignia like the rainbow flag.

That's literally them being themselves. Sorry if that makes you, or bigots, uncomfortable.

[Orlong]

https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-a...-unstable-jobs



It's a convenient sentiment for justifying letting people starve so they can sleep easily at night, but unfortunately it's never been backed up by any data to support it.

From your article it seems many are people who refuse to take anything but a cushy job with high pay. They dont want to work shifting schedules (boo hoo hoo, most people have worked jobs like that at some point). They dont want jobs that dont provide sick pay or benefits, and then the big one. They dont want to take a job that will kick them off benefits because they make more getting benefits than they do from their new job, rather than pick up a second job)

[GreenGoldSharpie]

If they get their way they'll set the rights of the LGBTQ and women back at least 50 years. Their whole goal these days is to stuff the gays back in the closet and put the women back in the kitchen. That's a pretty decent chunk of people that have to take a hit.

I think there's less reason to worry than you think, and I'm stating this as a trans person. That doesn't mean this isn't extremely serious -- because it is. It's going to be extremely brutal for LGBTQ folks in red states when interacting with the government, but even in those states there's been a huge cultural shift that will be nearly impossible to roll back.

It is getting better, and the best way to nullify shitty government is to get most people on board with not being shitty to us in general. We're winning that fight and the roll forward of civil liberties in blue states. Culture can nullify a lot of institutional bullshit. Not all, but a lot.

[Captain N]

There is an easy solution for you. You could just stop wearing your I am gay necklace everywhere you go and they would never know. But too many in the LBGT community cant just be happy being themselves, they have to make it a point to make sure everyone else knows it too either by dressing in an over the top flamboyant way, or just wearing clothing with insignia like the rainbow flag.

So your argument is literally that people should be punished through government intervention simply for dressing a certain way or showing support for a specific demographic?

I'm sorry that you feel the need to restrict the expressive freedoms of certain Americans due to your own bigotry.

I think there's less reason to worry than you think, and I'm stating this as a trans person. That doesn't mean this isn't extremely serious -- because it is. It's going to be extremely brutal for LGBTQ folks in red states when interacting with the government, but even in those states there's been a huge cultural shift that will be nearly impossible to roll back.

It is getting better, and the best way to nullify shitty government is to get most people on board with not being shitty to us in general. We're winning that fight and the roll forward of civil liberties in blue states. Culture can nullify a lot of institutional bullshit. Not all, but a lot.

Well hopefully that cultural shift where people have become more accepting does deflect a lot of that hatred away. But like you said it's going to be a hell of a climb for the community against Red State government.

[Orlong]

"Pretend you're someone else and not who you are because it might offend bigots."

Strong argument there, Orlong.

And most gay folks don't walk around with dildo's strapped to their heads every day. Most, believe it or not, are nigh indistinguishable from the rest of us straight folks walking around.



That's literally them being themselves. Sorry if that makes you, or bigots, uncomfortable.

No, its not. Its them looking for attention, and to try and get people to make a snide comment or deny them service so they can make a huge issue out of it. Most gay people dress normal and people dont even know they are gay

[starlord]

No, its not. Its them looking for attention, and to try and get people to make a snide comment or deny them service so they can make a huge issue out of it. Most gay people dress normal and people dont even know they are gay

what does this have to do with food stamps again?