WASHINGTON — More than three million people would lose their food stamps under a new rule proposed Tuesday by the Agriculture Department to change the program’s eligibility requirements.
Agriculture officials say they are fixing a loophole that currently allows some states to give food stamps to people who have a certain amount of savings and other assets. Critics say the rule will punish the working poor and stymie their ability to accumulate assets.
More than 38 million low-income Americans receive food stamps.
Under the current law, 39 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and the Virgin Islands make it easier for people to be eligible for food stamps if they already qualify for another federal aid program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The new rule would greatly reduce the ability of those jurisdictions to do so.
Many Republicans say the new rule would limit abuse of food stamps by people who do not need them. Critics like to cite a Minnesota man, Rob Undersander, who claimed he received food stamps for 19 months even though he had significant assets.
“As a member who personally met with a millionaire that took advantage of the food stamp program to prove a point, I can tell you: Reform is certainly needed,” Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, said in statement.
Robert Rector, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the proposed rule “removes an obvious abuse of the system by state governments and it basically would restore confidence in the food stamp program.”
Democrats were outraged. “The administration’s latest act of staggering callousness would steal food off the table of working families and hungry children, and dismantle proven pathways out of poverty for millions,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “The administration’s proposal is both cruel and counterproductive.’’
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, called the proposed rule “cruel, ideological and inhumane,” and told reporters at a news conference that Democrats would work to “beat back” the effort to restrict food stamps, as they had in the past.
To qualify for food stamps, a family’s assets and income must fall below certain limits. Households with an elderly or disabled family member must have assets of $3,500 or less. Incomes should be at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level.
But those requirements are often waived by states because states see assets as a buffer against food insecurity. Some states allow food stamps for people with incomes as high as 200 percent of the poverty line.
The new rule would make it much harder for people above those asset limits and income levels to qualify.
Under the proposed rule, families with assets or income above the limits would be eligible for food stamps only if they had been receiving any kind of help under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program for more than six months. The new rule would restrict the kind of noncash assistance received under the program that qualifies families for food stamps: They would be eligible if they were receiving aid like job training and child care help. The idea behind the requirement, agriculture officials said, was that it would help demonstrate which families were truly in need of help and weed out fraud.
Experts countered that the new rule would cut off families most in need of support. “It’s exactly the kinds of households that the administration is interested in supporting,” said Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.
Democrats view the proposed rule as another attempt to dismantle the food stamp program. In 2018, the House tried and failed, despite support from President Trump, to impose work requirements on able-bodied adults seeking food stamps. Conservatives had also hoped to close a loophole that allows states to waive the requirements in areas with high unemployment.
“This proposal is yet another attempt by this administration to circumvent Congress and make harmful changes to nutrition assistance that have been repeatedly rejected on a bipartisan basis,” Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, said in a statement.
There will be a 60-day public comment period before the Agriculture Department can move forward with the rule.
