Perhaps you heard: Those monsters in the Trump administration are kicking the vulnerable off food stamps.
That’s the narrative following Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’s recent announcement that 4.3 million people have left the food stamp rolls since the start of last year. As one ostensible expert told the Associated Press, the program has gotten “harder to access.” Another academic lamented to the media that “we have a persistent poverty problem in this country” — a problem apparently made worse if food stamps aren’t available to as many people as possible.
Recommended Stories
But in fact, people leaving food stamps is a profoundly good thing — both for the people themselves and the country as a whole. It may even be one of the Trump administration’s greatest accomplishments.
DEFLATING THE CONTROVERSY OVER MEDICAID WORK REQUIREMENTS
It’s important to realize who, exactly, is getting off this welfare program. The answer: Millions of people who shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Food stamps were created for the truly vulnerable, but under the Obama and Biden administrations, able-bodied adults were allowed to enroll en masse. By late last summer, we estimate that more than 8.1 million food stamp recipients were able-bodied adults without young kids, and federal data show that 70% of them didn’t work at all.
That’s a huge problem. These are people who can and should have gainful employment, both for their own sake and for the economy. Instead, they’ve been allowed to swap self-sufficiency for dependence on welfare.
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans tackled this crisis in their signature legislation last summer. They expanded food stamp work requirements, while closing loopholes that states have used to keep people on the program indefinitely. Most people intuitively know this is a good thing: Polling shows that more than 70% of voters support requiring able-bodied adults without young children to work before receiving food stamps. When Wisconsinites voted on this very question in 2023, nearly 80% supported connecting welfare to work.
These stronger work requirements help explain why millions of people are leaving the program. (Republicans also barred illegal immigrants from the program.) Far from being kicked from the program for no good reason, able-bodied adults are getting jobs and making too much money to get the taxpayers’ help. My organization’s research shows that in state after state, people’s incomes double or even triple shortly after leaving food stamps. They’re once again climbing the ladder of opportunity — exactly what work requirements are supposed to do.
Their effectiveness is even clearer when you dig into the details. According to my organization’s review of federal and state-level data, since September alone, 4 million people have come off the rolls, compared to just 1.2 million between January and September last year. In Florida, food stamp enrollment is down 13%. In Texas, it’s 12%. Across the nation, able-bodied adults are leaving welfare dependence behind, in favor of financial independence.
And the story is only going to get better. While most states have quickly implemented the new work requirements, some have tried to delay the inevitable. Blue states in particular — such as California, New York, and more — are using a variety of tricks to keep able-bodied adults on food stamps as long as possible.
But their machinations can’t last forever, and within the next several months, every state will have to fully comply with federal law. Once that happens, millions of able-bodied adults will leave food stamps, thanks to the income they’ll make at the jobs they find.
KATIE BRITT DROPS E-VERIFY BILL TO STOMP OUT HIRING OF ILLEGAL WORKERS
We should all celebrate this long-overdue shift. The Trump administration and congressional Republicans are protecting food stamps for the truly vulnerable, while strengthening the economy by helping able-bodied adults find the work that improves their lives.
Despite what you may have heard, there’s nothing monstrous about moving able-bodied adults from welfare to work. The real monsters in this story are the previous presidents, such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who let the safety net become a dependency trap for people who can and should pursue the American dream.
Hayden Dublois is data and analytics director at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
