700,000 People Will Lose Food Stamp Benefits Under Trump’s New Plan

The current presidential administration signaled early in the term that among the policy changes they planned was an

overhaul of the food benefits for low-income Americans

The proposed cuts purportedly are aimed at moving people from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps, to working. However, they do this by making it more difficult for states to waive the work requirements. For childless, non-disabled people between ages 18 and 49, the requirement states they must work at least 20 hours each week for more than three months of a 36-month period to qualify for the assistance.

States with very high unemployment have previously been able to waive the work requirement to help people struggling to maintain consistent unemployment if the area’s unemployment rate was more than 20% above the national average of 3.6% —meaning above 4.3%. The new rule requires them to be above 6% unemployment to waive that requirement. 

The administration boasts that this will save $5.5 billion over five years, but the USDA estimates that this will affect about 700,000 people in doing so — most heavily in New York, Illinois, and California. Senator Debbie Stabenow from Michigan called it a “callous proposal” and points out that the rule does nothing to assist people in finding work, but simply strips the benefits from people who need it.

Two other rule changes limiting benefits to the country’s neediest people are coming down the line as well, one of which aims at automatic enrollment of families receiving other forms of federal aid and the other which will cap the way people can deduct housing and utility costs when applying for food stamps.