The reconciliation recommendations proposed by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees both make important progress strengthening work requirements for able-bodied adults on Food Stamps. Both proposals would close loopholes and crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse.
Overall, many of the Food Stamp policies passed by the House in H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, are stronger than those recently proposed by the Senate.
As the Senate considers the reconciliation bill, it should be strengthened to align more closely with the provisions already passed by the House.
Work Requirements Age of Applicability
The Senate reconciliation proposal would significantly strengthen the Food Stamp work requirements for able-bodied adults, but not as strongly as the House-passed bill.
Both the House and Senate proposals would attempt to expand the work requirements to certain able-bodied adults through age 64.
However, the Senate proposal has a technical error that the House bill addresses with a conforming amendment to the general work registration requirement. The Senate proposal provides an exception to the work requirement for anyone “otherwise exempt” from the work registration requirement. But the current work registration requirement only applies to individuals up to age 59. So, without a fix, the actual age of applicability under the Senate bill would align with the general work registration requirement at 59 rather than 64.
Pro-Family Work Requirements
The House bill would apply work requirements to parents of children aged 7 and older, with an exception for a married parent who lives with a child and a spouse who meets the work requirement.
The Senate proposed work requirements would apply to parents with children age 10 or older.
Promoting work for parents is an important pro-family reform. Households with children should have at least one worker to provide for the family and set a positive example for the next generation. The best way to reduce child poverty is not through government handouts, but by helping parents get on an upwardly mobile trajectory.
Work Requirement Waivers
Geographic waivers are a loophole that have gutted the existing work requirement, allowing millions of work-capable adults to receive Food Stamps without working.
States may request waivers of the work requirements for geographic “areas” deemed to lack a “sufficient number of jobs.” However, states and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) exploit these loosely defined terms and expansive regulations to gerrymander boundaries and use outdated data to exempt millions of able-bodied welfare recipients from work.
Both the House and Senate proposals would make significant progress in closing this loophole by eliminating the subjective lack of “sufficient number of jobs” criteria. Instead, states would only be able to request a geographic waiver for an area that has an unemployment rate of over 10%.
The House-passed bill would end gerrymandering by requiring waivers only for counties (or equivalent) with an unemployment rate above 10%.
However, the Senate proposal would allow gerrymandering to continue by keeping the term “area.” To be sure, with the 10% threshold in place, gerrymandering will be much more difficult, but the possibility would remain.
The Senate bill would continue to allow long term waivers, such as California’s unusual two-year waiver that was approved by the lame-duck Biden USDA just five days before President Trump was sworn into office. In contrast, the House-passed bill would limit waivers to no more than 12 months.
FRA Exceptions
One area where the Senate proposal is much stronger than the House-passed bill is that it would eliminate the exceptions from work requirements for able-bodied homeless individuals, veterans, and former foster care children that were added by the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023.
The House bill would continue these exceptions through FY 2030. The exceptions add more than $8 billion in costs to taxpayers over the budget window. Even worse, they weaken the work requirements and trap work-capable adults in dependance rather than help them become the self-sufficient members of society they could be.
Discretionary Exemptions
After the exceptions and waivers, States are also allowed to apply a limited number of monthly discretionary exemptions for individuals who are expected to, but nonetheless fail, to satisfy the work requirement. These can be referred to as a “no good cause exemption.”
The FRA reduced the number of discretionary exemptions that states can provide each year to 8% of the caseload subject to the work requirement.
The House-passed bill would further limit the discretionary exemptions to 1%.
The Senate proposal keeps the current discretionary exemptions at 8%.
State Cost Share
Food Stamps are currently fully funded by the federal government, but the program is administered by the states.
To fix this inequity and improve incentives, the House-passed bill included a state cost-sharing requirement. Each state would contribute 5% of program costs beginning in 2028. States with improper payment rates of 6% or higher would contribute more based on a sliding scale, with states that have a payment error rate of 10% or higher contributing 25% of program costs.
The Senate proposal also includes a cost-sharing requirement based on improper payment rates, which would be an important improvement relative to current law. Unfortunately, the Senate proposal waters down the House-passed provision. Only states with a payment error rate of 6% or higher would contribute anything, with the maximum contribution set at 15% for states with an error rate above 10%.
The state’s share of the federally funded welfare benefits would be extremely modest under these proposals. Nationally, a 5% cost share of Food Stamp benefits would amount to less than 0.5% of state general fund budgets. Federal aid to state and local governments has skyrocketed in recent years, while self-funded state and local spending has also increased and rainy day fund balances are at the highest levels ever recorded.
States and their local taxpayers should pay their fair share for the benefits distributed to citizens in their states. A reasonable cost-sharing requirement would ensure accountability and ownership for the welfare programs operated by each state.
Improper Payments
The 2014 Farm Bill instructs USDA to ignore improper payments up to a “quality control tolerance threshold.” This threshold was set at $37 in 2014 and increases with inflation each year. The tolerance threshold increases to $57 for FY 2025.
To fix this problem, the House-passed bill included the Snap Back Inaccurate SNAP Payments Act, sponsored by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA). This important provision would set the error tolerance rate at zero.
Unfortunately, the Senate proposal does not include this vital term and condition of the state cost share, allowing improper payments to go uncounted and costing taxpayers.
Thrifty Food Plan
President Biden unilaterally increased food stamp allotments 21% by “reevaluating” the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) used to calculate benefit levels in 2021. CBO analysis confirms that the 21 percent above-inflation increase to the TFP will cost $300 billion over the next decade while also reducing workforce participation.
Both the House and Senate proposals would allow the Biden increase to remain in place, but would attempt to prevent unilateral increases by future administrations. Food Stamp benefits would be adjusted each year for inflation, as they had previously.
The Senate proposal explicitly codifies the Biden report that modified the TFP in 2021, while it is not referenced in the House bill.
The House and Senate proposals could both be strengthened by freezing benefit levels until the pre-Biden formula catches up to the current level.
Benefits for Illegal Aliens
President Biden abused loopholes to confer billions of dollars in welfare services to illegal aliens. Both the House and Senate proposals include identical language that restricts Food Stamp eligibility for these illegal aliens.
Food Stamp Income and Asset Requirements
Neither bill addresses the Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE) loophole, which allows states to bypass federal Food Stamp eligibility requirements and provide benefits to individuals with an unlimited amount of assets and income of up to twice the federal poverty threshold. USDA “guidance” starting in 1999 opened the door for abuse – making millions eligible who wouldn’t otherwise qualify under federal requirements.
BBCE is also used by states to avoid determining improper payments. So, with the new state cost-sharing requirements based on improper payment rates, the BBCE loophole needs to be closed.
The Senate should reinstate the federal asset and income tests for all Food Stamp applicants.
Senate Food Stamp Proposal Makes Important Reforms, But Should Be More Closely Aligned with the House-Passed One Big Beautiful Bill
Work requirements as a condition of welfare benefits for able-bodied adults help move people off welfare and into the workforce. However, the current Food Stamp work requirements are limited, weak, and often rendered ineffective by loopholes. Consequently, the food stamp program has fostered a culture of dependency.
13 million able-bodied adults received benefits in 2022, but 66% of these work-capable welfare recipients did not work at all.
Because of the loopholes and exceptions, the current food stamp work requirements apply to only a fraction of the able-bodied welfare recipients: fewer than 3.6 million able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs). Only 16 percent of these work-capable adults worked the 20 hours per week required to satisfy the work requirement.
The House and Senate have both proposed important reforms to address Food Stamp waste, fraud, and abuse.
Yet there is room for the Senate to improve and strengthen the One Big Beautiful Bill on its way to President Trump.
