WASHINGTON -- As the government imposes "work requirements" on unemployed food stamp recipients around the U.S., a new White House report says benefits don't stop people from working in the first place.
In a Tuesday report summarizing recent research done on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the White House Council of Economic Advisers says SNAP's monthly benefits reduce hunger, lift people out of poverty and improve lifetime health for children whose parents receive benefits.
As for the notion that food stamp benefits diminish people's work effort, the report says "the existing research suggests that the effects are either modest or negligible."
More than 45 million Americans are enrolled in the program, a number that is only slowly declining after it surged because of the Great Recession.
This year, several states have hurried to limit benefits for able-bodied adults without children or jobs. Federal law says childless adults can only have benefits for three months unless they work 20 hours a week, but because of high unemployment, states have been allowed to waive the requirement. Next year, thanks to declining joblessness, the Obama administration will be taking the waivers away. Several Republican governors didn't want to wait, and re-imposed the limit early.
“If someone is an adult, who is able to work and they don’t have children, we ask that they be enrolled in one of our job training programs and they go out with our assistance and look for work," Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said last week after 25 percent of Wisconsin's working-age SNAP recipients saw their benefits discontinued. Walker has repeatedly complained that employers in his state are unable to lure potential workers away from the dole.
"Among working-age adults, some are not working because they are the primary caregivers of young children or a disabled family member, and 22 percent are exempt from work due to disability, but a full 57 percent are either working or are unemployed and looking for work," the CEA's report says.
The report also says research suggests children in households that receive benefits are 16 percentage points less likely to be obese as adults and 8 percentage points more likely to finish high school.
Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, has been overseeing a "soup-to-nuts" review of the program with an eye toward somehow nudging more recipients into jobs.
"SNAP does not operate in a vacuum in lives of families, and we have heard repeatedly during our hearing series that when SNAP is combined with other programs, it can create a welfare cliff that is difficult to overcome," Conaway said in a Tuesday statement, referring to the fact that SNAP recipients lose eligibility for benefits if they earn more money from work. "Our welfare system should not be a trap that prevents individuals from pursuing work, achieving their potential, and climbing the economic ladder."