WSJ: States' Food-Stamp Fight Intensifies

[question everything]

States' Food-Stamp Fight Intensifies

Push to Extend Benefits to Working Poor Collides With Congress's Push to Cut Deficit
By JANE ZHANG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 5, 2005; Page A4

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States have been working to broaden the reach of food stamps, in part because of concerns that welfare reform pushed many low-income residents off other assistance programs. A number of states, led by Michigan and North Dakota, in recent years simplified their application process and aggressively recruited the working poor. On average, 25.5 million Americans received food stamps last year, up from 17.2 million in 2000. That trend is colliding with Congress's drive to attack red ink in the federal budget.

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The five-year, $50 billion deficit-reduction bill that passed the House last month would cut spending on food stamps by $700 million. The Senate bill didn't include such a cut, and it is uncertain whether the provision will remain after House and Senate conferees work out differences in the two bills. The House bill cuts spending mainly by changing some eligibility requirements. It also would take away some flexibility that states have used to boost enrollment.

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"I think we've seen a positive attitude in general," says Jean Daniel, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "This is really a nutrition -- not a welfare -- program." And even in the face of cutbacks, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns last week announced that the department has available $1 million for public agencies as well as nonprofit, community and faith-based organizations to reach out to potential food-stamp recipients. Efforts to increase awareness of the program nudged participation rates up to 56% of those eligible in 2003, the latest figure available, according to Mathematica Policy Research, which analyzed the program for the Agriculture Department. The rate had been as high as 75% before the 1996 welfare-reform law took effect, but had plunged to 53% by 2001.

The House bill could put a damper on further outreach. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities figures that Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin would be hit hardest by the changes in eligibility. Overall, it figures, some 150,000 people might be removed from the program, in addition to 70,000 legal immigrants who would become ineligible under a provision that increases their residency requirement to seven years from five years.


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Write to Jane Zhang at [email protected]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113374019166713634.html (subscription)

[question everything]

1. A lot easier to cut food stamps than to take gold out of the quivering

hands of the top 2% of the wealthy.