Trump’s callous food aid cuts? NC is already there

The Trump administration is preparing new limits on receiving federal food aid that could render nearly 700,000 people ineligible nationally because they do not meet work requirements.

This move to deprive the hungry is gratuitous and cruel, but North Carolinians don’t need to worry about it. North Carolina’s legislative majority — ever at the front in making life harder for the poor — took this step years ago.

In 2015 the Republican-controlled legislature voted and Gov. Pat McCrory signed a bill barring the state Department of Health and Human Services from requesting waivers from limits on federal food aid. As a result, tens of thousands of North Carolinians lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps).

The federal change is aimed at so-called able-bodied adults without dependents who work less than 20 hours a week. People in that category are limited to receiving food assistance to no more than three months in a three-year period. However, many states sought and received waivers from that limit for counties where the number of jobless people exceeded job openings. That flexibility was especially important during economic downturns.

The Trump administration rule, slated to take effect April 1, 2020, will sharply limit ability of states to seek waivers that would allow able-bodied adults without dependents to receive aid beyond three months. In 2018, recipients in this group received an average of $161 a month, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Advocates for the change echo the claims made in North Carolina in 2015. They say that unemployment is low and people should be encouraged to work.

“This rule lays the groundwork for the expectation that able-bodied Americans re-enter the workforce where there are currently more job openings than people to fill them,” said Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, whose department administers SNAP.

That reasoning applies a permanent change to a shifting situation. What happens in the next recession when there are more people than job openings? That’s a question North Carolina is already having to answer as the unemployment rate in some of its rural counties is well above the national rate and jobs — even for the willing and truly able-bodied — are scarce.

Beyond the matter of available jobs is the issue of whether the “able-bodied” are truly able to find work. An Urban Institute study of eliminating waivers in Kentucky noted that research shows “able-bodied adults without dependents participating in SNAP are vulnerable, often experiencing significant physical and mental health challenges and other barriers to work, such as limited skills and low educational attainment.”

Mike Darrow, executive director of Feeding the Carolinas, a network of food banks, said the average client uses a food bank only four times a year when money runs short, but he added, “There seems to be a portion of the population that will always need the safety net regardless of economic conditions.”

Restricting access to food aid grows out of a notion that means-tested government aid can become a kind of luxury for the lazy. But those who actually work with the poor know that the aid is well short of the need and there is no pleasure in taking it. Some may collect it unfairly, but what multi-billion dollar program — public or private — is without some share misspent?

Tightening the rules to lock out a few will deprive many more with legitimate need. President Trump isn’t bothered. His 2019 budget proposed cutting SNAP by more than $213 billion over the next 10 years. Such frugality about subsidizing food purchases hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from giving more than $28 billion to farmers whose sales were reduced by his trade wars. Are land-rich farmers and agribusinesses now the deserving poor?

The government should be vigilant about preventing waste and abuse. That can be done by enforcing existing SNAP rules. There is no justification for a blanket cut in food assistance based on a fable about able-bodied people abusing the system. In this case, the real abuse of the system is being done by those who govern it.

Clarification: An editorial Wednesday credited former NC Gov. Jim Martin with raising teacher teacher pay to the national average. Both Martin and former Gov. Jim Hunt led efforts to raise teacher pay, with pay reaching the national average under Hunt.

This story was originally published December 11, 2019 at 12:56 PM with the headline "Trump’s callous food aid cuts? NC is already there."