The House Agriculture Committee passed legislation Wednesday that would significantly reform the nation’s food stamp program by strengthening the requirement that able-bodied recipients work or receive job training in exchange for benefits.
The panel voted 26-20 to pass the 2018 Agriculture and Nutrition Act out of committee, which sends the legislation to the House floor. Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who supports the bill, told reporters last week the bill would be considered “soon.”
Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, said he is aiming for a May vote.
But the future of the legislation is uncertain. A similar bill failed on the House floor in 2013, requiring the food stamp portion to be passed separately.
Even if the bill passes the House, it has little chance of clearing the Senate, where Republicans and Democrats are working on a bipartisan measure that is expected to exclude the food stamp reforms.
Nonetheless, Conaway said he’s hopeful his bill can eventually make it into law.
“Today’s vote was about America’s farmers and ranchers,” Conaway said. “It was about a better future and greater opportunities for SNAP recipients. It was about fulfilling an obligation to lead, rather than standing on the sidelines.”
The $867 billion House measure authorizes farm programs and policy, but the vast majority of the bill and its cost is dedicated to the the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as food stamps.
The federal government currently requires 20 hours of work for able-bodied food stamp recipients, but a third of the states waive the requirement.
The bill would reform the waiver process so more able-bodied recipients would be required to receive training or go to work. The legislation would require recipients aged 18-59 to either work 20 hours per week or use the time in a work or employment training program.
It would exclude those who are pregnant, parenting a child under 6, or deemed physically or mentally unfit, and would provide states with two years to transition into the program, lawmakers said. To help get SNAP recipients back into the workforce, the bill spends $1 billion to augment state training and work programs.
Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Fla., a member of the committee, said the work requirement would help fill job openings created by a growing economy. In his district, Davis said, the machinery company Caterpillar Inc. is having trouble hiring equipment operators.
“Our goal, in my opinion, should be to get people into those jobs at Cat, and other jobs around the country,” Davis said.
Democrats voted unanimously against the measure, citing the changes to the SNAP program that they argued would throw thousands, if not millions, out of the food assistance program.
“No way,” panel member Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said, when the clerk called for his vote.
McGovern and other Democrats oppose the $1 billion for new training, which they said would be duplicative and ineffective.
“You are creating a new bureaucracy that will not work and are jeopardizing food benefits for some of the most vulnerable people in our country,” he said.
Republicans have argued that states have escaped the existing federal work requirements for food stamp recipients by creating software that manipulates unemployment data so that fewer people are required to work. Ultimately, those people are hurt by not rejoining the workforce and remaining below or near the poverty line, Republicans argued.
“Why don’t we invest in families?” Davis said. “By doing something different. By giving them a chance.”
