The Left’s Food Stamp Narrative Is Falling Apart

When Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) last summer, more than 42 million, or one in eight, Americans were on the food stamp program. Since then, that number has fallen by 5 million. Is this trend “incredibly alarming” and “unconscionable,” as Democratic lawmakers have claimed?

Only if you assume that fewer people receiving food stamps is inherently a bad thing. Much of SNAP’s enrollment decline reflects states unwinding pandemic-era waivers and eligibility rules that kept caseloads elevated. It can also mean that people capable of work are finding jobs, or that those who no longer qualify are leaving the program.

The more revealing question is why SNAP enrollment remained elevated after the pandemic-era emergency had passed.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was relatively responsive to economic conditions for much of its history, expanding during recessions and shrinking during periods of economic growth. Policy choices broke that trend.

SNAP rolls surged as states gerrymandered work requirement waivers meant for areas with weak labor markets across multiple counties (and even entire states), and emergency policies let states waive verification checks, such as applicant interviews and more frequent eligibility redeterminations. Many of these policies outlasted the pandemic because states had little reason to reverse them.

States share SNAP administrative expenditures, while benefit spending is fully federally funded. Letting the rolls inflate allowed policymakers to appear generous to constituents while federal taxpayers picked up more than 90 percent of the program’s tab.

The American Enterprise Institute estimated that, by fiscal year 2023, more than eight in 10 able-bodied adults on SNAP were not meeting the program’s work requirements through employment. That same year, one in 10 SNAP dollars, or $10.7 billion, went to households that received more than they were entitled to, largely because states didn’t perform proper eligibility checks. Cutting paperwork saved states money; the cost of the resulting payment errors fell largely on federal taxpayers. When the economy recovered and unemployment fell back to 2019 levels, the program didn’t follow. Six million more Americans were on SNAP last summer than before the pandemic.

Congress worked to address SNAP’s incentive misalignments and bring the program’s spending and enrollment closer to pre-pandemic levels with OBBBA.

Besides expanding the number of able-bodied adults subject to work requirements, the law limited states’ ability to waive those rules except in areas with genuinely high unemployment. More importantly, it encouraged states to preserve benefits for eligible recipients by requiring states with high improper payments — benefits sent in the wrong amount or to ineligible households — to share in paying for the food stamp benefits they provide.

As Senate Agriculture Committee chairman John Boozman put it, the policy changes were meant to “preserve the integrity and sustainability” of SNAP and restore its intent as a “bridge to independence, not a long-term lifestyle.”

Thirty years ago, Congress tried to redesign welfare around making welfare a “way station, not a way of life,” as Brookings scholar Isabel Sawhill later put it. In 1996, Congress converted the federal government’s flagship cash welfare program into the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant, featuring work requirements and time limits to help move families from welfare to work. In the years that followed, child poverty dropped dramatically, and employment among single mothers surged, even as caseloads fell from 5 million families in 1994 to 2.2 million in 2000.

As then-Sen. Joe Biden said, “The culture of welfare must be replaced with the culture of work.” Indeed, work is one of the most reliable paths out of poverty. It’s also tied to better mental health, stronger social ties, and greater life satisfaction.

These principles still resonate with the American public. A new Manhattan Institute poll finds that voters still believe benefits should be temporary, focused mostly on those unable to provide for themselves, and paired with an expectation that able-bodied adults work in exchange for them.

If the government is going to provide welfare benefits, Americans are clear about what it should do: Target the truly needy — the disabled, the elderly, and low-income families with young children — not subsidize dependency for adults capable of supporting themselves. Judge the success of OBBBA’s SNAP reforms, and all welfare programs, by how many people move out of welfare and into self-sufficiency, not by how many are kept on it.

Reprinted with Permission from DC Journal - By Romina Boccia & Tyler Turman