Democrats lambasted changes to the food stamp program in the new legislation. AOC exclaimed:

House Republicans: Voting for cuts to *every single American* on SNAP in exchange for some signed merch. Voting to starve babies. The disabled. The poor.

New York Times reporter Julia Moskin wrote, “The legislation will make it more difficult for people to qualify for benefits, and reduce those benefits for those who are eligible.” However, at close inspection, the actual legislation will demonstrate the falseness of AOC’s claims and the deceptiveness of Moskin’s.

The legislation modestly extends the work requirements that were already part of the food-stamp program: the need to be either employed, in training programs, or doing volunteer work for 80 hours per month. It extended these requirements to adults without dependent children who are 55-64 years old, and to those whose dependent children are over 14 years old.  In addition, for this latter group, if the adult does not meet the work-related requirement, the children still qualify for their share of the food stamps. It is hard to see how these requirements are mean-spirited and will lead to the catastrophic outcomes AOC claims.

What is different is that now states are less able to exempt recipients from the work-related requirements.  Until now, many states, including California and Illinois, have exempted the vast majority of recipients.  Only 16 states fully enforced work-related requirements, so that probably two-thirds of recipients nationally were exempt. (RELATED: Entitlement Fraud Is Now a Stated Aim of the Democrat Party)

Obama’s Food Stamp Expansion

The composition of the food-stamp population changed dramatically under Obama. Until then, relatively few adults without dependent children were on the rolls. He not only made it easier for them to qualify. Obama eliminated the requirement to have limited wealth and strict enforcement of the legislated income limit, but allowed those who qualified for other benefit programs to automatically qualify for food stamps.

As a result, the number of food-stamp recipients increased not only during the 2008-09 downturn from $28.2 to $33.5 million but continued to expand even when the economy was growing, reaching $47.6 million in 2013. And despite continuous robust growth for the next decade, it was still $41.9 million in 2023. Most striking, since 2007, after adjusting for inflation, food-stamp expenditures have doubled to $120 billion.

Citing 2012 Department of Agriculture data, nearly 30 percent of able-bodied, childless adults — about 2.9 million — did not work even an hour a week. When Kansas enforced the work requirement, it halved the average time people received assistance, from 14 to seven months. The share of those employed jumped from 18 percent to 36 percent, and wages increased from an average of $6,000 to $13,000. Yes, a fair number simply chose not to meet the work-related requirement, but those who did were prodded to work more and have a substantial rise in their incomes.

This issue highlights the most important difference between liberal and conservative thinking. With almost a religious fervor, liberals are unwilling to attach any behavioral requirements to benefits programs. They favor housing first, refusing to require those addicted to drugs to enter a treatment program as a condition for housing. They promote universal basic income programs even though rigorous evaluations find that they reduce engagement in productive behavior. And they reject the evidence that the work-related requirements of Clinton-era welfare reform were responsible for moving black women forward. (RELATED: Nearly Half Dead in Luxury Apartments Given to Utah Homeless)

Accuracy Incentivized

There is a second major change: Under certain circumstances, the federal government would no longer provide full payments to recipients. There are annual audits that measure what share of recipients who received overpayments or underpayments. Underpayments are always less than 2 percent. It is the overpayments that are subject to the new rules. The share of recipients receiving overpayments fell continuously to 3 percent in 2014. Since then, however, they increased to just over 6 percent in 2019 and then to about 11 percent nationally in 2024.

The new policy will cut back federal funding of recipients by 5 percent if the overpayment rate is 6-8 percent, by 10 percent if it is 8-10 percent, and by 15 percent if it is above 10 percent. Interestingly, of the 15 states above the 2024 national average, the vast majority were deep-blue states, including California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. Indeed, only Florida and Georgia were in the Republican column.

It is up to the states how they respond. Maybe if they hadn’t depleted their reserves to fund illegal migrants in sanctuary cities, they would have the funds to make up for the federal losses. Or maybe they could be more disciplined and reduce the overpayment rates to where they were five or 10 years ago. In any case, it is hard to blame a justifiable rule if some states choose to reduce their food stamp program.

I expect that the outcome will be similar to what happened after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Then, wildly exaggerated claims of its harmfulness were forecasted. While some state requirements certainly inconvenienced some pregnant women, there were only isolated cases of physical damage.

With the enforcement of work requirements, liberals will undoubtedly find isolated examples of underserved hardships, more so if some states reduce coverage rather than finding ways to address their overpayment rates. However, there will be many more examples that follow the Kansas outcomes: higher employment rates and less long-term dependency.

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