While some are demanding welfare work requirements in exchange for raising the debt limit, Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson said he would not gladly accept net budget savings just to have Congress increase SNAP work requirements.
“It’s an emotional issue, my motivation is almost not budget savings,” he told DailyMail.com during an interview at the House Republican affairs retreat in Orlando, Florida.
“In fact, if Democrats wanted to take the savings from the work requirement and instead reinvest it in higher benefits or job training, I would happily do it so I could get their support.”
After Johnson’s bill, the 45-member right-wing House Freedom Caucus released a page-long list of demands in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling, which included ‘restore Clinton-era job requirements to programs assistance,’ which will likely include not only SNAP but also Medicaid and housing assistance.
Johnson himself grew up in central South Dakota in a family that relied on SNAP assistance. He was elected to Congress in 2018 after a stint at the Department of Agriculture and working for the governor’s office.
“I was that kid on food stamps, I know firsthand how government assistance can help and hurt,” he said.
Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson said he would not gladly accept net budget savings just to increase SNAP work requirements through Congress.
“It’s an emotional issue, my motivation is almost not budget savings,” he told DailyMail.com.
But Democrats have already opposed the bill he introduced last week. The progressive think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said in a new analysis that more than 10 million people, 1 in 4 current beneficiaries, would be at risk of losing their benefits under the new proposal.
“About 6 million people who would potentially be subject to the time limit and at risk of losing eligibility for SNAP, and about 4 million children living in families whose SNAP benefits could be reduced,” he wrote. the group.
According to pre-pandemic data from Johnson’s office, 1.36 million ABAWD households reported zero dollars in gross income, meaning they did not work at all.
Current law says that ABAD Adults Without Dependents (ABAWD) cannot go more than three months without working at least 20 hours a week and still receive SNAP benefits.
Johnson’s bill would close a loophole that allows states to waive that requirement under a “not enough jobs” provision. Eighteen states currently benefit from the provision.
The bill would also expand the age for job requirements from 18 to 49 under current law to 18 to 65. “As I approach 49 years of age, I know I still have decades of work ahead of me,” Johnson said.
“My real motivation for the work requirements is the fact that they have been shown to help lift people out of poverty,” said the South Dakota Republican at-large member.
“So that’s the primary motivation and then the secondary one is the fact that I think it will strengthen American competitiveness in a really competitive global time.”
“To the extent that we save some money, I think that’s good too, but it’s not the main motivator,” Johnson added. SNAP is expected to cost $153.9 billion in fiscal year 2023.
But Democrats deny that forcing low-income people to find jobs in order to get food assistance pushes them into the workforce, saying instead it simply pushes them deeper into poverty.
Reps. Barbara Lee of California and Alma Adams of North Carolina reintroduced the Improved Access to Nutrition Act earlier this month, with Lee calling the work requirement “punitive and arbitrary.”
“These guys talk about states’ rights all the time, except when it comes to poor people,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) told Politico about the bill before it was announced.
“My real motivation for the work requirements is the fact that they have been shown to help lift people out of poverty,” said the South Dakota Republican at-large member.
Johnson, pictured above with his own family, grew up in a family that relied on food stamps.
Under the current ‘robust flexibility’ states can exempt beneficiaries from work requirements, 12 percent of state cases are eligible to avoid working for benefits.
The bill would eliminate the ability of states to carry over exemption waivers from year to year. Johnson’s office says this would help “reduce storage cases and hinder abuses of the law.”
The proposal caused a stir among Senate Republicans, though Democrats, who control the upper chamber, say it’s dead from the start.
In a hearing last week with the Sec. of Agriculture. Tom Vilsack, Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, said he hopes to add labor requirements to the farm bill that must pass. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., pressed Vilsack on how the USDA determines if an area really doesn’t have enough work to allow a state to waive work requirements.
Vilsack weighed in on the work requirements at the Senate Farm Committee hearing last week: “When people talk to me about the work requirements, and how they want to reduce and restrict and have fewer people on SNAP,” Vilsack asked. “My question is, if you’re really interested in that, are you also looking at (minimum) salary levels?”
Asked if he was concerned that the White House would be forced to meet work requirements in exchange for a debt ceiling deal, Vilsack was quoted as saying Political: “No, because the White House right now says they are not, there is no negotiation.”
