With near record low unemployment and more than 7 million available jobs nationwide, there has never been a better time for reforms that move individuals from welfare to work, and the Trump administration knows it.
In December, the Department of Agriculture issued a proposed rule aimed at cracking down on states’ ability to waive work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults on food stamps.
Current law requires able-bodied adults without dependents to work, train, or volunteer at least part-time in order to receive food stamps. States are allowed to waive the work requirements in areas that have more than 10 percent unemployment, but they’ve used gimmicks created and exploited by the Clinton and Obama administrations to waive these commonsense requirements for as many able-bodied adults as possible.
[Read more: Economy grew by 2.9 percent in 2018, just short of Trump’s goal]
The result? Work requirements have been waived wholly or partially in 33 states and the District of Columbia, trapping millions of able-bodied, childless adults in dependency.
That’s why it was so encouraging to see the Trump administration decide to tackle this problem. As Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue noted in a USA Today op-ed introducing a proposed regulatory overhaul, “a central theme of the Trump administration has been to expand prosperity for all Americans, which includes helping people lift themselves out of pervasive poverty.”
However, while USDA’s proposed rule is a step in the right direction, it falls short of its goal. The proposal would still allow states to game the system by gerrymandering jurisdictions together under the guise of “labor market areas” to maximize the number of people exempted from the work requirement. To make matters worse, quirks within the proposed rule could actually incentivize states to head in the wrong direction by waiving areas that currently have a work requirement in place.
In effect, only 1 million more people would be subject to the work requirement under this proposal. Given that there are more than 2.6 million able-bodied Americans waived from the work requirement, that’s a problem.
The good news is that there’s a simple fix: Instead of pushing labor market areas, USDA ought to use a measure its own researchers developed called “commuting zones.” Commuting zones connect rural areas with nearby employment centers and present a more realistic picture of whether an area has actual employment opportunity.
By using commuting zones instead of labor market areas and prohibiting waivers in a zone that has sufficient jobs, the number of able-bodied adults waived from work requirements would be cut in half compared to the proposed rule.
This simple change can bring nearly 2 million more able-bodied people into the fold of work requirements, work requirements that we know work at putting people back to work.
Consider the real-world experience of a food stamp recipient from northwest Arkansas. We’ll call him Greg. Greg was an able-bodied adult with no kids who was on food stamps. For a long time, he wasn’t asked to meet a work requirement.
When Arkansas fully restored their food stamp work requirements in 2016, Greg found work within three months of leaving welfare. He climbed out of poverty, and within two years was making $64,000.
Getting this food stamp regulation right means that the Gregs of the world will get the nudge they deserve to re-engage in the community and take that first job or that next job. They’ll get to experience the dignity of work, and the financial, physical, and emotional benefits that come with it.
The Trump administration has indicated their willingness to crack down on waiver abuse and restore the integrity of welfare programs, steps that are desperately needed. More can and should be done with the final rule to move millions of able-bodied people back to work and correct decades of bad policy.
Kristina Rasmussen is vice president of federal affairs at the Opportunity Solutions Project.
