[A] proposed federal rule change could eliminate nutrition-assistance benefits for some Vermonters.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday announced it will tighten work requirements for adults without disabilities or dependents who receive benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – known in Vermont as 3SquaresVT.
It’s not yet clear how severe the repercussions will be in Vermont, and it’s also not clear whether Gov. Phil Scott’s administration will oppose the change.
“Based on what we know now, it would have some impacts in Vermont,” said Sean Brown, deputy commissioner of the Department for Children and Families Economic Services Division. “We still need to do a lot of work to analyze the proposed rule in total.”
Others say they will fight the federal proposal because it could unfairly penalize some who are unable to work.
“We know that taking food away from people does nothing to help them find jobs,” said Faye Mack, advocacy and education director at Hunger Free Vermont.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, billed by the federal government as “the largest program in the domestic hunger safety net,” provides benefits to low-income individuals and families. At last count, it serves more than 40 million people nationwide.
As of the end of October, state statistics show there were 71,176 Vermonters enrolled in 3SquaresVT. The average benefit for all Vermont households is $221 per month, or $369 per month for homes with children.
But President Donald Trump’s administration believes there are more people receiving those benefits than there should be.
There already is a federal rule that says “able-bodied adults without dependents” can receive nutrition benefits for only three months in a 36-month period unless they are working or “participating in a work program.”
However, he Department of Agriculture says most states have federally approved waivers for some or all adult participants so that the work rule doesn’t apply. Many of those waivers date to the Great Recession of the late 2000s, the department says, but the waivers have not been revised even as unemployment rates have dropped.
As a result, federal officials say “nearly half” of able-bodied adults who would be affected by the work rule reside in an area covered by a waiver.
“The department believes waiver criteria need to be strengthened to better align with economic reality,” department officials wrote in their proposed rule revision. “These changes would ensure that such a large percentage of the country can no longer be waived when the economy is booming and unemployment is low.”
Among the rule changes proposed by the federal government are eliminating statewide waivers in most cases; limiting the duration of waivers; ending the “carryover” of work-rule exemptions from year to year; and requiring the use of standardized economic data to support waiver requests.
Federal officials emphasized that the changes would apply only to non-disabled adults between the ages of 18 and 49 with no dependents. Those who are elderly, disabled or pregnant would not be affected.
The number of able-bodied adults without dependents who receive nutrition assistance in Vermont was not immediately available on Thursday. But Brown said there are work-rule waivers covering some portions of the state, so there likely would be some Vermonters affected by the proposed rule change.
The Department of Agriculture says it is aligning the nutrition program with Trump administration ideals of “self-sufficiency, well-being and economic mobility.”
“Long-term reliance on government assistance has never been part of the American dream,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Thursday. “As we make benefits available to those who truly need them, we must also encourage participants to take proactive steps toward self-sufficiency.”
Brown said the state has had “some success” in recent years in its effort to better equip nutrition-program beneficiaries for the workforce.
“Vermont has focused a lot of time and resources on supporting these people in order to help them develop the tools and skills to be able to participate in the job market,” he said.
Mack acknowledged that the state has a successful employment program. But from Hunger Free Vermont’s perspective, it’s clear that the Trump administration is interested in “kicking people off of SNAP,” she said.
The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is just 2.8 percent, less than the national rate of 3.7 percent. But Mack said that statistic doesn’t necessarily tell the story of those who don’t have adequate transportation, the ability to afford child care or access to jobs that fit their skills.
“Vermont has a pretty low unemployment rate,” she said. “But the thing we know is that Vermonters have a diverse array of barriers to employment.”
Mack said the federal rule change also could lessen the nutrition program’s ability to respond to greater need during future economic downturns.
She said Hunger Free Vermont will encourage Vermonters to “raise their voice on behalf of their neighbors” when a public comment period opens on the proposed rule change. She added that “the entire Vermont congressional delegation has already reached out to us.”
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noted that Trump signed a new farm bill on Thursday. During the debate over that bill, lawmakers “considered changes like the one the administration now seeks through rule-making and rejected them in favor of workforce training programs that actually help Americans get and keep employment,” Leahy said.
“These rules will do nothing to ‘restore the dignity of work’ and instead are a direct challenge to the decisions made by Congress in the bipartisan Farm Bill,” Leahy said.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Trump is “attacking the poor” with the new rule proposal.
“We should be expanding programs like food stamps that lift people out of poverty, not making them even harder to access,” Sanders said.
