Religious Community Keys on Food Stamp Provisions of the Farm Bill

The House and Senate have passed divergent versions of the Farm Bill, including reauthorization of the Food Stamp Program in two substantially different forms. Now a House-Senate conference committee must work out a compromise measure for approval by both bodies.

The religious community did not take a position on the whole Farm Bill, but focused its attention on the nutrition title and particularly on the Food Stamp provisions. The House and Senate both reauthorized the Food Stamp Program, the House for five years and the Senate for ten. The House included $3.6 billion in new nutrition funding spread over ten years, while the Senate measure adds $8.9 billion in new funding for food programs. Beyond the different reauthorization periods and spending levels, however, debate in the conference committee will center on changes adopted by the Senate, which would restore nutrition benefits for immigrant families (an estimated 363,000 individuals) and provide more food aid to working families. The religious community advocates approval of these Senate provisions, along with the higher funding level.

The Senate approved the following provisions:

*The Durbin-Lugar amendment (passed by an amazing 96-1) to restore Food Stamp eligibility to legal immigrants with at least five years of residence in the U.S., a provision supported by President Bush in his budget proposal. A floor amendment would bar participation to certain legal residents who have had a twelve month or longer period of being in "out-of-legal status". This feature is expected to be an administrative nightmare that will need to be addressed by conferees.

*The Grassley-Dorgan-Johnson amendment limiting payments to farmers and redirecting $800 million into the Food Stamp Program to increase the value of individual grants by increasing the standard deduction used to determine benefits. This amendment would also, over time, eliminate the cap on the deduction for shelter costs which is also used to determine benefits and lift the cap on the amount of reimbursement recipients who participate in education and job training may receive for transportation and work expenses.

*The McConnell amendment adding $500 million to the Food Stamp Program to increase access to the program for low-income people with handicaps and families with children.

None of these improvements in the Food Stamp Program are in the House bill. Conferees will have to decide how to deal with these amendments, as well as resolving the differences with regard to funding levels and length of reauthorization.

Background

The Food Stamp Program was intended, at its creation, to be available to anyone who was eligible on the basis of poverty for as long as they remained eligible, without regard to citizenship or family structure. It is not correctly termed a welfare program since it provides no cash assistance to eligible families and since many participants are employed and paying taxes.

There are strict limits on the income and resources a household can have and remain eligible to participate in the program. Nearly 90% of participants have incomes below the poverty line, with a third living at less than half of that level. Households whose net income exceeds 130% of the poverty line are not eligible unless they contain an elderly or disabled member. Countable resources (checking or savings accounts, cash, or stocks and bonds) may not exceed $2000. A car valued at more than $4,650 is considered a countable resource and could make a family ineligible.

With the passage in 1996 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) nearly all legal immigrants lost their eligibility for food stamps, even those who were working at low-wage jobs and paying taxes. Congress subsequently reinstated benefits for most immigrant children and immigrants with disabilities, but many families forego benefits for their children because they fear that applying may jeopardize their future applications for citizenship or extended legal residence.

More than 87% of food stamp benefits go to homes with children. Over half of all food stamp recipients are children under age 18. One-third of those children are under age 5 and so do not yet receive subsidized meals at school. Over one-quarter of recipient households have at least one disabled member and more than one-fifth have at least one elderly person.

All non-elderly adults who are not disabled are required to be employed or to register for employment in order to be eligible for food stamps, but people who have recently become unemployed are often disqualified on the grounds of having too much in countable resources, especially if they still own good cars. The enactment of PRWORA in 1996 deprived unemployed adults without dependent children of food stamp benefits except for three months in every 36 (or six months in areas with very high unemployment).

Over the past several years, participation in the Food Stamp Program has dropped very rapidly, partly as a result of rising employment because of the robust economy and partly because of the PRWORA provisions dropping immigrants and unemployed childless adults from the program. After hitting a high of nearly 30 million people in 1994, the caseload began to drop as the economy improved and people were able to find jobs. Then came the implementation of PRWORA's draconian provisions, leading to steep declines in 1997, after which the drop slowed and flattened during 1999 and 2000, reaching a low in July of 2000 of about 17 million. The sharp drop in participation in the late 1990s was alarming to hunger advocates, because it showed that the rate of departure from the Food Stamp Program was far higher than the drop in the poverty rate. At the same time, religious organizations involved with feeding the hungry reported soaring demands for their services, leading to the conclusion that people losing their food stamps through the PRWORA changes were going without necessary nutrition.

With the softening of the economy, applications for food stamps began to rise in March 2001. The economic trend, combined with the events of September 11, marked the beginning of an escalation in caseloads, with a massive increase of 600,000 people last October, a single-month increase greater than any in the last recession. Over the last year, the rolls have increased by 1.2 million people nationally.

Clearly Congress, as it reauthorizes the Food Stamp Program, needs to take into consideration the recession and the loss of jobs that accompanied September 11. If the program is to serve its purposes adequately, funding and benefits must be significantly increased, and eligibility must be expanded to include needy immigrants and childless adults.

General Assembly
The General Assembly has spoken out often on both domestic and international hunger concerns. In 1984, the 196th General Assembly called upon Presbyterians to "investigate the extent and causes of hunger with their won communities, to renew their efforts to meet the immediate human needs, and to work for legislation and other systemic changes that will help to remove the reasons for hunger." Additionally, the Assembly called upon the Administration and Congress to fund "federal nutrition programs at levels adequate to meet the need and to reverse the trend of decreasing financial support for such programs." (Minutes, 1984, Part I, p. 329)