The Next Welfare Reform: Food Stamps
Republicans need to start a national conversation about a program that grew nearly 69% between 2008 and 2013.
By Jason L. Riley
March 24, 2015 7:12 p.m. ET
When Congress passed welfare reform in 1996, the food-stamp program was spared. Nearly two decades later, its work requirements remain weak, and incentives to promote the purchase of healthy foods are nonexistent. House and Senate Republicans released spending proposals last week that aim to address these problems, which have been costly, and not merely in budgetary terms.
Officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the food-stamp program has become the country’s fastest-growing means-tested social-welfare program. Only Medicaid is more expensive. Between 2000 and 2013, SNAP caseloads grew to 47.6 million from 17.2 million, and spending grew to $80 billion from $20.6 billion, according to the Agriculture Department. SNAP participation fell slightly last year, to 46.5 million individuals, as the economy improved, but that still leaves a population the size of Spain’s living in the U.S. on food stamps.
Yes, the Great Recession played a role in this alarming trend, which began under George W. Bush, but not a big one. Between 2008 and 2013, SNAP recipients grew nearly 69%. By contrast, the poverty rate increased just 16.5% during the same period. The unprecedented jump in food-stamp use over the past six years has mostly been driven by manufactured demand. The Obama administration has attempted to turn SNAP into a middle-class entitlement by easing eligibility rules and recruiting new food-stamp recipients.
Reversing course while Mr. Obama is still in office is unlikely. Democrats tend to consider greater government dependence an achievement and use handouts to increase voter support. Obama considers European-style welfare states a model for America. Still, Republicans are right to use their majorities to begin a national conversation on the nature of the food-stamp problem.
The public still views SNAP as the anti-hunger program that originated under John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s—even though it now operates more like an open-ended income-supplement program that discourages work. Some 56% of SNAP users are in the program for longer than five years, which suggests that the assistance is being used by most recipients as a permanent source of income, not as a temporary safety net.
SNAP may be off-track in another way, too. “Today, instead of hunger, the central nutritional problem facing the poor, indeed all Americans, is not too little food but rather too much—or at least too many calories,” Douglas Besharov, who teaches courses on poverty alleviation at the University of Maryland, told the House Agriculture Committee last month. “Despite this massive increase in overweight and obesity among the poor, federal feeding programs still operate under their nearly half-century-old objective of increasing food consumption. Few experts are willing to say that federal feeding programs are making the poor fat, although the evidence points in that direction.” In a sense, Michelle Obama’s fitness initiatives are trying to address a problem that is exacerbated by her husband’s food-stamp policies.
Although SNAP is jointly administered by federal and state governments, Uncle Sam picks up almost all of the bill. That means states have little incentive to control costs. Republicans argue that shifting to block grants would not only save money but also encourage states to increase the labor-participation rate of low-income populations. A state that has only so much money to work with is more likely to promote self-sufficiency in the form of employment, job-search and job-training requirements for able-bodied adults on the dole.
What the GOP is pushing for SNAP has precedent in other successful welfare-reform efforts. The same 1996 reforms that ignored the food-stamp program imposed more stringent time limits and work requirements on welfare recipients enrolled in programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. Welfare rolls subsequently plunged. By 2004, caseloads had fallen by 60% overall and by at least 30% in nearly every state. Child poverty, black child poverty and child hunger also decreased, while employment among single mothers rose.
This was a welcome outcome for taxpayers, poor people and everyone else—except those politicians with a vested interest in putting government dependence ahead of self-sufficiency to get elected and re-elected. Democrat Marcia Fudge, a congresswoman from Ohio, told a black audience last fall to “contain your complaining” and go vote for her party. “Even when you won’t fight for yourself, we fight for you,” Ms. Fudge said. “Whether it’s immigration or education, whether it’s food stamps or housing, we fight for you every day. So my message to you is to contain your complaining.”
She’s fighting for their food stamps.
How about fighting for their upward economic mobility? Well, that’s not Ms. Fudge’s primary concern, and it’s doubtful that her priorities will change anytime soon. She was re-elected in November with 79.2% of the vote.
Mr. Riley, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and Journal contributor, is the author of “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed” (Encounter Books, 2014).
wsj.com |
