Senate needs to step up for SNAP

 I hope that West Virginia’s congressional delegation brings some sanity and humanity into policy decisions being debated in Congress. 

A case in point is the reconciliation bill that passed the US House Agriculture Committee that would blow up Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food assistance for millions of Americans—and thousands of West Virginians-- to pay for more tax cuts aimed at the very wealthy.

Let’s start with where we are now. In West Virginia, around 124,000 households with around 279,000 people receive SNAP food assistance, including over 90,000 kids and almost 11,000 veterans. That’s around 15 percent of state residents. The program brings close to $50 million per month to the state’s economy.

That money goes directly to local businesses and farmers markets, keeps 2,170 retailers, including endangered rural grocery stores, open, and creates a lot of jobs. In fact, the annual amount of SNAP benefits in our economy is enough to support around 19,000 jobs at $30,000 a year.

According to the Food Research and Action Council, in recent years 69 percent of SNAP households here had at least one member working outside the home; 38 percent had at least one older adult; 43 percent had children; and 54 percent had at least one member with a disability.

All that would change and lots of people would be hurt if the House plan goes through. It would cut SNAP funding nationally by around $300 billion, resulting in a loss of food assistance to 11 million people.

Among other things, the plan would blow up already strained state budgets. It would require states to pay between 5 and 25 percent of the costs of benefits, while doubling state administrative costs. Given the ongoing budget woes facing our state, in part due to recently enacted tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest individuals and businesses, it’s highly unlikely that our state legislature would be willing or able to make up the difference.

It would erode the value of benefits as the price of food increases.

And it would double down on bureaucratic paperwork and work reporting requirements that do nothing to promote work and do everything to provide excuses to kick people off. It lifts the age of these requirements from 54 to 64 for older adults. It makes it harder for states to get requirement waivers.

It would completely eliminate SNAP-Ed, an evidence-based program that helps low-income families access fresh and healthier food.

It will eliminate food assistance for refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom are children and seniors.

One especially mean feature is that it would end exemptions from work reporting requirements for parents of children aged 7 to 17 without any allowances even for the months when school is not in session. It’s a mystery how they expect parents of young children to afford to pay for child care, which can cost more than college tuition, if their income is low enough to qualify for SNAP. And it totally disrespects the value of caregiving and raising children. SNAP eligibility changes may also make it harder for children to qualify for free school meals.

This will have negative social ripple effects that will be felt coast to coast and hit especially hard here. It will have negative effects on the economy, education, public health, and the quality of life.

And the purpose of creating all this unnecessary suffering (not even counting the even larger amount of proposed Medicaid cuts) is to pay for a tax cut bill that would overwhelmingly benefit the richest one percent at the expense of children, seniors, and working families.

I’d like to think that Representatives Miller and Moore would reconsider their support for this, but if not, it’s going to be up to the US Senate to stop this trainwreck. And a lot will depend on the voices and votes of Senators Capito and Justice.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Text written before last night's house vote.)

Why work requirements don't work

The recent proposal to increase work reporting requirements for people receiving SNAP food assistance under the Limit, Save, and Grow Act is redundant and harmful for several reasons:

*work requirements already exist for SNAP. According to the USDA, these “include registering for work, participating in SNAP Employment and Training (E&T) or workfare if assigned by your state SNAP agency, taking a suitable job if offered, and not voluntarily quitting a job or reducing your work hours below 30 a week without a good reason.” States also have the option to impose additional requirements on able-bodies adults without dependents aged 18-49, although evidence suggests that these have failed to increase workforce participation.

*the term “work requirements” in the context of changing eligibility programs such as SNAP and Medicaid is misleading. A more accurate term would be reporting requirements which involve more layers of paperwork, bureaucracy, and surveillance in exchange for often meager benefits. These reporting requirements impose burdens people receiving food assistance and the businesses, organizations, and/or agencies for which they work and simply result in few people receiving needed assistance.

*work reporting requirements don’t promote work. For example, the New York Times reported that when West Virginia piloted the program in counties with the most favorable labor market conditions, the state Department of Health and Human Resources found that “Our best data does not indicate that the program has had a significant impact on employment figures.” Rather, people lost food aid and local businesses lost out. Similarly, when Arkansas added similar reporting requirements for Medicaid, workforce participation didn’t increase—but the number of uninsured people did.

*work reporting requirements for food assistance hit the most vulnerable people hardest, including homeless people or those with unstable housing—a population that includes many veterans, domestic violence survivors, rural residents, people with disabilities, noncustodial adults supporting children, people in recovery from Substance Use Disorder, and others.

*the “Limit, Save, and Grow Act” would double down on vulnerable populations by imposing reporting requirements on older adults up to age 55. According to AARP, over 9.5 million Americans over age 50 rely on SNAP, a group that faces age discrimination in hiring and employment practices.

*SNAP benefits help local businesses and economies—and loss of benefits costs both. The Food Research and Action Council reports that each dollar in federal SNAP benefits generates $1.79 in economic activity.

*reducing SNAP benefits for millions of Americans would only place greater demands on already stretched food pantries, soup kitchens, and charities which are often staffed by volunteers and seniors.

All of which is to say this is not cool.

A little good news

 This isn't earthshaking, but I'll take what I can get these days. The USDA just announced that it will withdraw a proposed rule issued during the bad old days of the Trump administration. The dead rule would have changed eligibility requirements for SNAP and other food assistance programs in ways that were estimated to have cut food aid to three million or more Americans and also affected the eligibility for free school meals for around one million kids.

Unsportsmanlike, in other words. I blogged about it here and here back in 2019 during the public comment period. As I wrote at the time, 

Here's why it's bad: the proposed change eliminates "broad based categorical eligibility" (BBCE), which allows people who are eligible for other assistance programs (such as TANF or welfare, SSI or other programs) to be automatically eligible for SNAP.

Eliminating the BBCE creates a cliff effect in which people could experience drastic cuts in benefits when their living conditions modestly improve.

I take my food fights seriously. It's nice to have one less thing to worry about.

Forget Christmas-the real war is on food assistance

According to the ancient Chinese classic the Tao Te Ching, which can be translated as The Way and Its Power,

The Tao of heaven is like the bending of a bow.
The high is lowered, and the low is raised.
If the string is too long, it is shortened;
If there is not enough, it is made longer.  

The Tao of heaven is to take from those who have too much
and give to those who do not have enough.
Man's way is different.
He takes from those who do not have enough
to give to those who already have too much. 

For a contemporary example of the latter, you can find a pretty good—or bad—example in the Trump administration’s serial assaults on food assistance, particularly the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.

Earlier this month, the administration announced a policy that make it harder for adults without dependents to get SNAP, imposing work reporting requirements and limits on the length of time they can receive food assistance. It would also make it harder for states to get a federal waiver to avoid these harsh policies.

This measure could cut off benefits for an estimated 700,000 destitute Americans, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). Those affected by the change are among the poorest in the U.S., with an average income at just 18 percent of the poverty line, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture,

“Most of these individuals are ineligible for any other form of government financial assistance because they aren’t elderly, severely disabled, or raising minor children,” notes Robert Greenstein of CBPP. “For many of them, SNAP is the only assistance they can receive to help make ends meet.”

Not only is the administration’s decision to take food off people’s tables morally reprehensible, it will do nothing to encourage employment among SNAP participants. In fact, the measure is a replay of a failed policy that was tried in West Virginia in 2017, when the state imposed similar requirements as a pilot in the nine counties that had the lowest unemployment rate and presumably the best economic opportunities.

When the results were tabulated, it turned out that this measure resulted in cutting over 5,400 people from the program … and it had no impact on increasing employment. By taking away SNAP benefits from low-income people, it actually took money from grocery stores and the local economy—and placed greater burdens on already stressed charities that had to scramble to meet increased need.

The Trump administration’s latest attack on food security comes in the wake of two other proposed changes that would change the way eligibility for SNAP is calculated, resulting in even more cuts to the program and threatening eligibility for other key food assistance programs, including those that provide free school breakfasts and lunches to children.

All these measures are an attempted end run around Congress, which protected SNAP from devastating cuts in the 2018 bipartisan Farm Bill.

The time limits for SNAP are set to take effect on April 1, 2020, unless Congress or the courts takes action to stop it, according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). “The final rule would cause serious harm to individuals, communities, and the nation while doing nothing to improve the health and employment of those impacted by the rule. In addition, the rule would harm the economy, grocery retailers, agricultural producers, and communities by reducing the amount of SNAP dollars available to spur local economic activity.”

One thing that people around the country could do is talk to their representatives in Congress and urge them to speak out against these cruel changes. Whatever happens next, our goal in West Virginia can be summed up in the saying “food for all.” To state the obvious, the problem isn’t that too many people in the U.S. receive SNAP benefits—the problem is that so many need them.

(This first appeared in a blog post for the AFSC.)

Pardon me for being a bore, but this is kind of important

The Trump administration has recently proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that could take away food assistance from 3 million or more Americans.

This step would ignore the clear will of bipartisan majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House that voted in the Farm Bill to leave the program intact.

Here’s what it does: eliminates the “broad based categorical eligibility” (BBCE) for people receiving SNAP. This allows people who are eligible for other assistance programs such as TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), Supplemental Security Income or other programs to be automatically eligible for SNAP.

Here’s why it’s bad: eliminating the BBCE creates a cliff effect in which people could experience drastic cuts in benefits when their living conditions modestly improve.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “SNAP supports work in part by phasing benefits down gradually — by only 24 to 36 cents for each dollar of increased earnings. But without BBCE, a family can lose substantial SNAP benefits from a small earnings increase that raises its gross income over SNAP’s eligibility threshold ... BBCE allows states to lift this threshold and phase benefits out more gradually, which lets households close to that threshold take higher-paying work and still benefit from SNAP.”

The proposed policy could have the negative effect of discouraging work by removing incentives for people to enter and stay in the labor force.

Eliminating BBCE could discourage struggling families from building modest savings and increase the level of bureaucracy in administering the program.

So if you want to do a good deed and make a public comment about the proposed policy, your message can be as simple as “Eliminating BBCE will push struggling families over a benefit cliff.”

Or “It’s a bad idea to discourage savings and asset building.”

Or “Why increase bureaucratic complexity? Keep it simple by keeping BBCE.” Or some combination of the above.

Then there’s this if you don’t want to overthink it: “It’s not nice to take away food from hungry people.”

And if you want to get biblical about it, there’s this verse from Isaiah: “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.”

There are plenty more where that came from.

The public comment period ends Sept. 23. One easy way to put your two cents in is to visit the Food Research and Action Center’s website  and click on this link.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail. And, yes, it was recycled from Goat Rope posts. But the public comment thing is important.)

Let them eat nothing

I don't know about you, but I just love it when billionaires try to take food away from hungry people. Over 3 million of them, to be exact. Here's what the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) has to say about the Trump administration's latest stunt:

The Trump administration today issued a proposed rule that would take food assistance away from 3 million people by making them ineligible to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation’s first line of defense against hunger.

The proposed rule will particularly harm working families with children whose net incomes are below the poverty line, and families and seniors with even a small amount of savings.

This latest attack on struggling Americans once again sidesteps Congress by eliminating SNAP’s broad-based categorical eligibility option, which allows states to streamline the process for households with slightly higher incomes that still experience financial hardship to participate in SNAP. This option for states has been fully vetted by administrations and Congress for more than 20 years, and was most recently upheld in the bipartisan 2018 Farm Bill.

By undercutting this option, the proposed rule will only fuel rates of hunger and food insecurity by taking food off the tables of working individuals and families, children, seniors, and people with disabilities. It will create a sicker and poorer nation by denying struggling households the food assistance they need for a healthy, productive life. It will put children’s health and learning at risk by removing their access to healthy school meals. It will also harm the economy, grocery retailers, and agricultural producers by reducing the amount of SNAP dollars available to spur local economic activity.

SNAP helps millions of Americans make ends meet. The Trump administration should be building on the successes of this proven program. Weakening SNAP only weakens our country.

FRAC encourages people to submit comments opposing the rule via its platform at FRAC.org. The 60-day public comment period will begin on July 24.

Ending the SNAP ban

When Congress passed welfare reform legislation in 1996, one little-discussed provision had far reaching and negative consequences. It imposed a lifetime ban on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly food stamp) assistance for people with drug felonies.

For whatever reason, people with other felony convictions, including armed robbery, sexual offenses or murder, were not subject to the ban.

People who have had drug convictions have many obstacles to re-entry and recovery. Felony convictions and a record of incarceration have been shown to have negative effects on employment, earnings, assets and other life chances.

Having access to basic food assistance should not be one of them. In fact, such stressors can contribute to relapse and recidivism.

There is a solution. States have the option to opt out of the lifetime ban. In fact, the vast majority—including some of the most conservative states—have modified or eliminated the ban. Only three states—West Virginia, South Carolina, and Mississippi—have kept the original ban intact.

It’s no secret that West Virginia is ground zero for opioid addiction. Many people impacted by this have felony drug convictions.

It’s difficult to calculate the number of West Virginians in this situation, but records from the WV Department of Health and Human Resources indicate that in 2016 alone, over 2,100 applied for and were denied SNAP benefits for this reason.

This number does not reflect those who applied in other years or those who knew they weren’t eligible to start with. It’s likely that tens of thousands of West Virginians, including parents and caregivers, would benefit by changing the policy.

People who have recently been released from incarceration are particularly vulnerable not only to relapse but to overdose fatalities. In 2016, an analysis of opioid fatalities found that 56 percent of those who died from overdoses had been incarcerated. Further, “Of male decedents that were incarcerated within 12 months of death, 28% died within a month after release, compared to 21% of females. Nearly half, (46%) of individuals with only some high school education died within 30 days of their release.”

To state the obvious, when people have served their time for drug convictions, they often have little or no assets. Jobs are hard to find. Family and community connections may have eroded over time. Relapse is a possibility, especially if there seems to be no hope. And they still need to eat.

It’s pretty simple, as things now stand, every loses, including those directly impacted, family and community members, local charities and local business. Everyone wins when those who need it most can receive basic food assistance.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Huntington WV Herald-Dispatch.)

Ending the SNAP ban: the time has come

Some of us are gearing up for another food fight in the West Virginia legislature. In case you missed it this story from the WV News Service lays out the case for ending the lifetime ban on SNAP benefits for people with felony drug convictions:

CHARLESTON, W. Va. – Reformed drug felons in West Virginia are blocked from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and some want the Legislature to fix that. 

West Virginia is one of only three states that has a lifetime SNAP ban for anyone convicted of a drug-related felony. 

That applies to Debbie Kolbe of Huntington, even though she has finished her sentence and broke her addiction to methamphetamine more than two years ago. 

Kolbe says it's unfair that no matter how long she stays clean, or how long she keeps her job, she can't get the help any other kind of felon can the day he or she leaves prison.

"Murder and armed robberies and all that stuff, and you can get help all day long,” she points out. “If I needed help with food, they absolutely will not. Even if I had young children, I could not get food stamps. They could, but I can't."

The lifetime ban was put in place as one of several measures designed to get tough on drug crime. 

Kolbe says she and other reformed felons want the Legislature to reconsider it in the next session.

Advocates say the ban may actually be counter-productive, forcing people back into crime just when the state should be helping them get their lives back together. 

Kolbe says it's enough of a struggle to become an ordinary taxpaying citizen again – hard to get work or an apartment and extremely difficult to build up any kind of financial security.

"You've already suffered the consequences to your actions, which I have,” she stresses. “And you've got numerous years of clean time and you're doing everything you're supposed to do. 
“I just don't think it's fair that drug-convicted felons are labeled like we are."

In recent years, the state has expanded drug courts and day reporting centers, making it easier for offenders to avoid prison time. Lawmakers also have made it easier for nonviolent felons to clean up their record, to make them more appealing to employers. 

Advocates say ending the benefit ban would add to that.

Time to end the SNAP ban

Some things that seem like a good idea at the time really aren’t.

Or, if you want to get biblical about it, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

As is the case with most individuals, I think the U.S. has taken a wrong turn or two over the course of its history. One example that comes to mind is Prohibition, the nationwide ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages that lasted from 1920 to 1933.

It didn’t stop the drinking (there were memories of “bathtub gin” in my family), but it was the best thing that ever happened to organized crime.

The “war on drugs” was another such misstep. While it may have given some politicians a racially tinged road to power, it devastated many communities, destroyed many lives and sucked up untold resources. Without getting rid of drugs.

Fortunately, it looks like more people across the political spectrum are beginning to question the policies of over-incarceration and of criminalizing public health problems.

There seems to be a growing awareness that punishment isn’t the best way to deal with addiction, and of the fact that the vast majority of people who get sucked into the prison-industrial complex are going to come out some day.

There is a growing interest in issues of recovery and re-entry, probably because the opioid crisis has touched so many families.

With both Democratic and Republican legislative majorities, West Virginia has taken some steps in a positive direction:

*In 2013, the Legislature passed the Justice Reinvestment Act, which aimed at reducing incarceration rates while protecting public safety.

*The same year, then-Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, which opened the gates of treatment and recovery for thousands of West Virginians dealing with addiction issues.

*In 2015, the Republican-led Legislature passed reforms in truancy and juvenile justice aimed at reducing the number of children kept in out-of-home confinement.

*In 2016, the Legislature passed a bill aimed at making it easier for people to regain driver’s licenses.

*In 2017, the Legislature passed the Second Chance for Employment Act, which allows people with nonviolent felony convictions to petition the courts to have the offense reduced to a misdemeanor.
Some of these steps could have been strengthened, but the trend shows movement in the right direction.

One big step West Virginia needs to take is to remove the lifetime ban on SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) for people with felony drug convictions.

That arbitrary ban — which doesn’t apply to any other category of offender — is an ill-thought-out legacy of 1990s federal welfare reform legislation.

According to Marc Mauer, of the D.C.-based Sentencing Project, that measure received about two minutes of debate at the time it was passed.

It shows.

Since then, all but three states, including some of the most conservative, have modified or removed the ban.

Guess who’s one of the three? The others are South Carolina and Mississippi.

As Elizabeth Lower-Basch, of the Center for Law and Social Policy, put it: “I think most states have, over time, recognized this isn’t helpful for the goal of reducing drug use.”

According to a report by Molly Born, of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, in 2016, more than 2,100 people with felony drug convictions were denied SNAP benefits after they had served their time. That number doesn’t include people who didn’t bother to apply at all or those who were denied in other years.

An analysis of overdose fatalities in 2016 found that 56 percent of those who died from overdoses had been incarcerated. Further, “Of male decedents that were incarcerated within 12 months of death, 28% died within a month after release, compared to 21% of females. Nearly half, (46%) of individuals with only some high school education died within 30 days of their release.”

To state the obvious, when people have served their time for drug convictions, they often have little or no assets. Jobs are hard to find. Family and community connections may have eroded over time. Relapse is a possibility, especially if there seems to be no hope.

And they still need to eat.

The road to recovery is hard, but we have a lot of people on it. They don’t need another roadblock.

It’s time to end the ban.

If they think it's so easy they should try it

Potter Stewart served as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1958 to 1981. He had some interesting things to say about checks and balances, the importance of a free press and the need for an enlightened citizenry.

However, he’s probably best remembered for his statement on how to identify obscenity. While acknowledging that it’s difficult to define in exact terms, he said “I know it when I see it ... .”

One place I’ve seen it lately has been in Washington, where the same House of Representatives majority that passed $1.5 trillion in tax cuts aimed mostly at rich people and corporations advanced a version of the Farm Bill that would cut basic food aid to 1.2 million Americans and slash benefits by around $17 billion.

The proposed cuts would come from restrictions on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that would affect families, children, low-wage workers, veterans, as well as people recovering from addictions.

Fortunately, the Farm Bill failed by a margin of 213 to 198, no thanks to West Virginia’s delegation. Unfortunately, it’s not over and we can anticipate further attacks on basic food security for vulnerable Americans.

Some of these attacks have already taken place at the state level. House Bill 4001, which passed the Legislature and was signed by the governor earlier this year, is likely to increase hunger without promoting employment. The bill takes a policy of time limits that failed in the nine counties with the best employment and spreads the misery statewide.

Apparently, the people who voted for it think living on a $4-a-day food budget is too high on the hog.

Just to put things into perspective, I thought a little social math might be in order here. Excuse me while I whip out the calculator:

*According to the West Virginia Code, legislators are eligible for a per diem of $131 per day during the regular session. Someone trying to survive on SNAP benefits would have to try to eat for over a month on that.

*Another good contrast is to consider how long someone on SNAP would have to live for the cost of one fancy meal. Let’s say it’s The Greenbrier. Thanks to the power of the interwebs, I found a menu and did the math: one bottle red wine, mid-range, $48; first course bisque, $9; lamb shank entrée, $49; chocolate soufflé dessert, $14; dessert wine, $17; cappuccino, $5. That comes to $157. If you throw in a 20 percent tip of $31.40, the total is 188.40. People getting by on SNAP would have to feed themselves for 47 days on that.

That’s a week longer than the time Jesus fasted in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. Come to think of it, I believe he had a thing or two to say about feeding the hungry.

(For the record, I don’t have anything against good food or the finer things in life. I just wish they were a bit more broadly shared. And I don’t mind people who can afford a feast — as long as they don’t try to take food away from those who can’t.)

*Here’s one more. The richest 1 percent of West Virginians are going to get a $25,000 tax cut due to recent federal legislation. That’s an annual food budget for 17 people on SNAP. Or, at current benefit levels, someone on SNAP would have to try to eat for a little over 17 years on that. As in from now until the year 2035.

Those lucky ducks on SNAP.

I only wish that those who want to take away food from people getting by on less than the cost of a fancy cup of coffee would actually try living on that much. It might be good medicine.

As Shakespeare put it in “King Lear,” “Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just.”

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette Mail.)

Hungry days ahead

Gov. Justice declared in his State of the State back in January, "We don't need to quit until every single person is not standing on the side of the bridge saying, 'Mister, you have no idea how bad I'm hurting.'"

Actions speak louder than words. A case in point is that despite our governor's noble pronouncement, he recently signed House Bill 4001, a law that once enacted will do more to increase hunger than increase full-time employment.

HB 4001 mandates that the state no longer apply for a waiver from the federal government to exempt able-bodied adults without dependents from a 20-hour-a-week work requirement to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (known as SNAP or food stamps, but more importantly should be understood as food).

The law will add at least eight additional counties to the nine-county pilot that began in early 2016 when our Department of Health and Human Resources removed roughly 5,417 so-called "able-bodied adults without dependents" from the SNAP rolls.

Work requirements sound good, and they especially sound good when applied to "able-bodied adults without dependents," but be careful not to generalize who these thousands of individuals might be.

Perhaps it is a person on the difficult journey toward recovery from opioid addiction, and the food security that SNAP provides is the linchpin.

Perhaps it is one of the thousands of grandparents raising grandkids due to the ongoing opioid crisis. Make no mistake then, more children will go hungry, too.

Is taking food away from a person the answer to helping them find a job that offers enough hours to satisfy the work requirement, and (gasp) a job that offers a decent wage and health benefits?

Because in reality a lot of these individuals are working but they are in extremely low-paying, part-time jobs that are volatile and do not always provide enough hours to meet the 20-hour-a-week minimum.

While people often say that any good policy should be evidence-based, too often we instead hear anecdotes and sweeping charges of "laziness" used to justify policy.

Sociologist Herbert Gans said of this trend in his essay "The War Against the Poor" that "judgments are based on imagined knowledge, which may come from stories and preconceived ideas."

When looking at the evidence of the nine-county pilot where stricter work requirements were enacted and 5,417 individuals lost their food stamps, "imagined knowledge" is about all we have.

Did we succeed in the professed goal of getting people into more full-time employment, paying taxes and therefore no longer needing $118 a month to help pay for the bare necessity of food?

According to the Department of Health and Human Resources' own report, the answer is no. Of the 13,984 referrals to the SNAP Employment and Training (E&T) program, 259 gained employment - a less than 2 per cent success rate.

By contrast to HB 4001, the bill number alone indicating it was their top priority, the same legislative body could not find the political will to pass a bill that would have had a real impact on workforce participation.

HB 2727 sought to address the fact that people leave prison every day without any form of state-issued identification card, which means they face difficulty obtaining a job, much less keeping one if they don't have a driver's license. This bill, which would have helped thousands of West Virginians become gainfully employed taxpayers, died in House Finance.

Illustrating how HB 2727 would have boosted employment, a 2015 study conducted in Franklin County, Ohio, of "able-bodied adults without dependents" found that a whopping 60 percent of the 5,000 individuals surveyed said that not having a driver's license was a significant barrier to employment. Other major barriers cited were felony convictions, lack of transportation and being non-custodial parents.

HB 4001 becoming law will not create a single good-paying job. But it will for certain take food away from people, and federal dollars away from local economies.

The people who support legislation like this believe that food is a privilege, not a basic human right. It is probably safe to say then that our billionaire governor, and both the Republicans and Democrats who voted for this bill, are not worried about how they will pay for their next meal.

I am left to conclude that the governor's avowal in his State of the State was not true aspiration, but that really he has no idea how bad people are hurting.

(This op-ed by Lida Shepherd of the American Friends Service Committee appeared in the Huntington WV Herald-Dispatch this week.)

"Let all who are hungry come and eat"

Time is running out for WV Governor Jim Justice to veto HB 4001, a mean-spirited bill that would take away food from thousands of poor West Virginians, stress local charities, and take millions of dollars from our economy.

Lots has been said and written about this, but the one that moves me the most is this op-ed by Charleston Rabbi Victor Urecki in the Charleston Gazette-Mail. He reminds us that at the sacred Seder meal celebrating Passover, the original freedom holiday, it's customary to pray, "“Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are needy come and celebrate with us.”

The whole thing is well worth reading, but here's just a bit that moved me.

At every Passover Seder, my revered teacher of blessed memory taught me that, at the beginning of the meal, we break one matzah and take the larger piece and wrap it for the end of the meal; we eat only the smaller piece as the meal begins. This is done to remind ourselves of the needs of the poor. He taught me that those who do not know where their next meal will come from never eat a full “loaf”; they worry that, tomorrow, they may not have bread to eat.

People in poverty are always insecure without a safety net. I will cherish that lesson as a moral obligation to act. We who live with abundance should never forget what it is like to be worried about food and translate that custom into a call for action to end hunger in our communities.

...
May the doors of compassion be open in our state, and may we declare: May all who are hungry come and eat.

I hope his words move Governor Justice as well.

May all who are hungry come and eat.

WV's Hunger Games and how you can help win them

In addition to alienating school teachers and public employees, it looks like WV Governor Jim Justice is supporting a plan to take away SNAP (food stamp) benefits from low income West Virginians and take millions of dollars out of the state's economy.

(Some state employees, by the way, qualify for SNAP.)

 Or at least, he hasn't opposed the plans of the WV Department of Health and Human Resources to do the same.  This Think Progress piece pretty much nails it.

A bill to do more of the same, HB 4001, is likely to be taken up by the Judiciary Committee of the WV House of Delegates next week.

There will be a public hearing on the bill this coming Monday (Feb. 12) at (groan) 8:30 am. If you can make it out, please come and make some noise.

You can also help a lot by calling the office of Chairman John Shott and asking him not to take up the bill. His  number is (304)-340-3252. His email is John.Shott@wvhouse.gov.  You can reach other members of the Judiciary Committee here.

You can reach the governor's office at 304-558-2000 or email him from this site.

Holy trifecta, Batman!

One of the meaner bills going through the state legislature in WV is SB 60, which would punish poor people in need of food assistance, take millions away from local businesses and the state's economy, and cost taxpayers money.

The Gazette had a great editorial about it, which is worth a look. The paper also ran this op-ed of mine this week, recycled from blog posts here.

The bill is now before the House Judiciary Committee (contact information here). If you're from WV, please contact the committee's leaders, particularly Chairman John Shott. You can take make up your own message or recycle the first paragraph of this post.

For local folks, there will be a public hearing in House Chambers Monday April 3 at 10:00. Please go if you can. Sign up the hour before the hearing.

(As a bonus, here are some old Goat Rope reflections on the art of the public hearing in WV politics.)

Thanks!

A kick in the assets

There are a lot of bad bills making their way through the WV legislature, but one that particularly gets under my skin is aimed at making life harder for people who need to rely on SNAP (formerly food stamps) for food assistance.

Senate Bill 60, linked above, isn't as bad as it used to be, thanks to amendments by rational legislators. But it's still pretty bad.

Let's start with the math. At a committee meeting last week, it came out that the proposed legislation would cost around a million per year in state tax dollars to pay private corporations to profit at public expense in "verifying" eligibility for benefits--in order to remove $5 million in federal dollars from the WV economy. That's money spent at local stores and farmers markets supporting local jobs.

One more time: we'd be paying corporations to take away money from WV. Really.

In chess, this would be like sacrificing a rook to take a pawn.

Even worse is a mean spirited asset limit which would knock people off the rolls and make it harder for low income families to get back on their feet. Most states, 34 in all, including not just West Virginia but some of the most politically conservative southern states, have eliminated the asset limit because it's expensive to implement, useless and just plain mean.

As the folks at the WV Center on Budget and Policy note,

The reason most states have removed their asset test from SNAP is that they recognized that it was counter-productive and punishes families for saving money for emergencies or for their children’s future while they are temporarily enrolled in SNAP.  By removing the asset test or limit, it simplifies the application process, reduces errors associated with assets and vehicle information.

Asset limits would hit older adults particularly hard, potentially wiping out retirement savings. But it could also eat away family savings for emergency or for college education...so that people could get the equivalent of $4 a day for food.

Like unemployment insurance, SNAP benefits are counter-cyclical, which means they kick in more when times are bad, helping to keep families and communities going. Most people receiving SNAP only do so for a limited time. Here's more from my policy wonk friends:

Because SNAP works as a temporary stopgap – with 58 percent of new receipts leaving the program within a year – it is vital for them to retain their savings as they get back on their feet. Studies have also shown that asset limits (and more stringent vehicles asset tests) have no impact on the length of stay in SNAP.

A study by the Urban Institute found that states with relaxed asset limits make it easier for low income people to bounce back and participate in the mainstream economy (such as having bank accounts):

Taken together, relaxed asset limits increase households’ financial security and stability by increasing savings and reducing benefit fluctuations, and they can decrease administrative program costs when fewer people cycle on and off the program. The findings suggest that states with SNAP asset limits can improve family financial well-being by relaxing them and that reinstating federal SNAP asset limits will harm family financial stability.

Finally, I hope that decision makers take a minute to check out this great letter to the editor in today's Gazette-Mail by the Rev. Kay Albright, outreach coordinator at Manna Meal, which serves two hot meals a day to anyone who shows up at St. John's Episcopal Church in Charleston.

Here are some of my favorite parts:

I have sat in committee meetings, met with various legislators, and called even more of them regarding SNAP benefits. I believe it is easy to sit in the capitol complex and make decisions about issues that do not affect you. Poverty is something our legislators may not have experienced.... 

Come and eat. Talk to those most affected by your decisions regarding SNAP before you make them. Come and see it is about food, a basic human need. We do not need to create more bureaucracy for those in West Virginia who are in the grip of poverty.

SB 60 is on second reading in the senate and is likely to be up for amendments tomorrow (Monday).

If you haven't already, please consider contacting your legislator. You can find out who and how here.

SNAP crackle pop

The latest Front Porch includes  a pretty brisk debate on  (food stamps), poverty and the current budget showdown in WV politics. You can check it out here.

Meanwhile, re: ACA. Damn.

Hunger games, WV style

This op-ed on efforts to restrict SNAP (formerly known as food stamp benefits) ran in today's Gazette Mail.

I think it’s interesting that many religious traditions uphold the idea of food justice. In part, that notion means that all people should have access to the nourishment that sustains life.

In the Torah, the fountainhead of Judaism, the biblical Book of Leviticus (23:22) requires all keepers of the covenant to leave a portion of their harvest for the poor and the foreigner, a theme reiterated many times by the Hebrew prophets.

The gospels are all about food, both literal and spiritual. One of the strongest passages is in Matthew 25 related to the last judgment. In it, both those destined to be saved and those destined to be damned are pretty surprised at their status. The former are told that they gave the Son of Man food and drink when he was hungry, while the latter did not.

Neither group seems to know exactly what he was talking about. The punchline came when the Judge says that whatever acts of justice or mercy were given to or withheld from “the least among you” was also done to him.

In the Quran, it is written that “In the sight of God, harshness, carelessness or even insensitivity to the suffering of the poor, helpless and hungry is tantamount to denying the religion and the Day of Judgment.”

Even pagans seemed to get the memo. Say what you want about the ancient Romans, but they at least provided food assistance for citizens displaced from their farms when rich aristocrats took over vast tracts of land. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, souls seeking a pleasant afterlife must pledge to the gods among other things that “I have not caused hunger.”

I could go on.

I hope that state legislators recall such ancient wisdom as they contemplate legislation that would restrict SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) assistance through time limits, punitive asset tests, unrealistic requirements, and time limits.

Or at least that they’d do the math.

Whatever noble motives people championing such legislation claim, the end result will be increased hunger and food insecurity. And less money circulating through our communities. And more of a drain on already overburdened food pantries and charities.

This isn’t speculation. It’s a fact.

Last year, the state Department of Health and Human Resources piloted a program implementing just some of these measures in nine counties. These were the most prosperous counties with the least unemployment. Presumably, these would be the counties with the best possible outcomes.

The results are in. Imposing time limits and unsupported requirements on able bodied adults without dependents (so-called ABAWDs, a dehumanizing label) didn’t result in more people being better off. It resulted in more people losing basic assistance and millions of dollars being taken out of the local economy.

Of nearly 14,000 people referred to education and training programs, only 259 gained employment by participation in the program.

There was no growth in the employment of the target population. According to DHHR, “The percentage of working ABAWDs proportional to the total SNAP population has held steady since the work requirements were put into place.”

On the other hand, 5,417 people were cut off. And over $13 million dollars was taken out of the local economy. (Multiply 5,417 by around $200 per month in SNAP benefits times 12 months.)

That was money that could support over 700 full-time retail jobs for a full year at the state’s minimum wage. That unspent local money doesn’t go into some imaginary pool for the “worthy poor” or get refunded to taxpayers. It’s just gone.

And it’s money that would have created jobs, supported food producers and local businesses, been invested in local banks and loaned out to local people for homes, cars and businesses.

DHHR estimates that if these measures were implemented statewide, it would mean the loss of nearly $18 million that could have been circulating through West Virginia’s economy. That’s even more of a loss to local jobs and businesses.

One would hope that considerations of justice, compassion and humanity as expressed in our religious traditions would be considered. Failing that, there’s the hope that considerations of jobs, profits for food producers and local businesses might be considered.

Failing either, the mean spirited political bullying of the least among us might prevail.

The jury is still out. I stand with the Judge.

Picking on the poor

This op-ed of mine came out in today's Gazette-Mail. It has a math error I correct at the end. My bad. Forgot to move a decimal point.

In the 1870s, the nation was slammed by one of those periodic depressions that punctuate our economic history. Although largely forgotten today, it was known as “the Long Depression” for its lingering effects. It lasted for 65 consecutive months — longer than the 43-month contraction of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Around 18,000 businesses failed between 1873 and 1875. Unemployment rose above 8 percent. Millions of Americans were jobless, hungry and homeless. In those days, there was no such thing as unemployment insurance, food assistance programs like SNAP or supports for the elderly like Social Security.

Some might call it a free-market paradise, although those hit by it probably didn’t.

In New York City, thousands of jobless workers, nearly half of them women, turned to one of the only forms of public assistance. They got to sleep in their clothes on hard benches in police station houses. And they had to be out at dawn in search of their next meal.


That’s a big credit to the humanity shown by the NYPD, but there was a catch. The homeless were only allowed to sleep for two nights a month in any one station house. For this reason, they were called “revolvers.”

That sounds like a grim existence, but there were those at the time — who had full bellies, money in their wallets and a roof over their heads — who condemned “the over-generous charity of the city” on the grounds that it “might sap the foundation of that independence of character, and that reliance on one’s own resources.”

It reminds me of the saying of Anatole France that “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

One might hope that over nearly 150 years of bitter experience that that kind of thinking would have been excreted from the body politic. Instead, it’s alive and well and is being promoted in West Virginia by out-of-state groups like the Foundation for Government Accountability, which aims to tighten the screws on poor people, many of whom are presumed to be “fraudsters” living too high on the hog.

Two groups targeted are people receiving TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), which is often referred to as “welfare,” and those receiving SNAP (formerly food stamp) benefits. There are all kinds of wild misconceptions about both.

People tend to vastly overestimate the number of people receiving welfare cash assistance and the level of benefits. But according to the DHHR, in September 2016, there were only 7,678 cases statewide. Of these, most were child-only cases with no adults in the benefit group, most of whom were kids living with a grandparent or other relative and who received no other support.

The number of adult cases (i.e. parents with kids) receiving cash assistance was only 2,698. That’s down from around 35,000 when “welfare reform” went into effect in the 1990s.

I did the math, dividing 2,698 adults getting TANF by the 2015 West Virginia population estimate of 1,844,128. That amounts to way less than 1 percent of the population. To be exact, it’s 0.001463022089573 percent. Not that anybody seems to be counting.

Damn, now that’s a problem.

As for the high-on-the-hog part, the TANF maximum benefit for a family of three is $340 per month. Or $11 and change per day per family. Or less than $4 per person per day. If that’s high, we’re talking about an extremely short hog. If people think it’s fun to live on that, I’d suggest they try it.

Benefits were actually slashed by $100 per month back in 2004, and the cuts have never been restored.

The typical adult receiving TANF is a single female, with two kids and some or all of a high school education, who might be a survivor of domestic violence and who has to comply with some stringent rules to receive temporary benefits and is subject to serious sanctions for failing to meet requirements.


Sounds like a dangerous fraudster to me.

Maybe we should call in an airstrike ...

Then there’s the SNAP population. According to the USDA, “SNAP continues to have one of the lowest fraud rates for federal programs.”

It’s true that the West Virginia caseload is bigger than TANF, more than 350,000 in 2013. But around two-fifths of these were children and one-fifth were elderly or disabled. Around one-fourth are adults living with children.

Many of the adults who receive SNAP benefits work at jobs that pay so little that people have to depend on this kind of help go get by.

Back to the hog. The average household benefit is $255 per month, which comes down to $126 per person or around $1.40 per meal. Try that for a while.

One might think that the best way to address that problem is to improve job quality, but some find it more fun to mess with poor people by making benefits like this harder to get, even though this would take federal money out of the economy that supports agriculture and retail jobs in grocery stores.


One thing that particularly seems to set some people off is the shocking discovery that some benefits might be spent in multiple states, although you might have that in a state where around half of the counties border other states or where, God forbid, people visit family members who live elsewhere or who are serving in the military.

I guess that could be remedied by putting collars on poor people that give shocks when the borders are crossed, kind of like the invisible fences some people use with dogs. Or by bringing back patrols like those used in the South before and after the Civil War to keep certain populations in line.

Or we could decide that we have better, less petty and more honorable things to do than stomp on people who are already down.

I think I’ve made up my mind.

Hunger games, WV style

This op-ed of mine on SNAP (formerly food stamp) benefits and hunger appeared in today's Charleston Gazette-Mail.

I’m pretty sure that being poor isn’t nearly as much fun as people who aren’t poor think it is. At least that was the case in the time I spent below that line and I’d just about bet the farm that’s still the case.

The best description I ever found of what it’s like came from the late writer Earl Shorris, who described poverty as living in a “surround of force,” which makes you feel like a hunted animal, always reacting or getting ready to react to the next threat, with little chance to relax or reflect.

He put it this way: “The poor, those who lose in the game of modern society, are thrust into a surround of force. Inside the surround, they experience anomie: panic is limitless action within a surround, but the surround ruthlessly limits the freedom of its objects by enclosing them.”

Bruce Springsteen summed it up pretty well too: you “end up like a dog that’s been beat too much till you spend half your life just covering up.”

Another person who got it right over 100 years ago was the American writer Jack London in his 1902 book “People of the Abyss,” about urban poverty in London. It describes the fragile condition of several individuals and families trying to scrape by, only to be undone by a mishap that those with more means would scarcely notice.

An accident, an illness, a downturn in the economy and the game is up. The words “And then the thing happened” run like a sad refrain through the book.

A lot of things have changed since then, but some things haven’t. Then or now, if you’re living on the edge, the least bump in the road can set off a downward spiral.

That’s one of the main reasons I’m concerned that as many as a million Americans — and several thousand West Virginians — are in danger of losing basic food assistance through SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps.

(The benefits these people rely on aren’t all that generous to start with. If you don’t believe that, try living for a month on a $2-per-meal budget and see how that works. You’ll also see why food pantries get busy at the end of the month.)

Some states with low unemployment rates are imposing strict SNAP time limits and work requirements on working age adults without dependents due to federal mandates. People who don’t meet them can lose food assistance for three years. West Virginia isn’t required to do so, yet it is imposing the same restrictions in nine pilot counties which are home to around 47,000 such adults. These changes are well-intentioned at the state level. I’m all for getting more people back to work and/or participating in education and training. Who isn’t?

However, unless we get this right, this could hurt people who are looking diligently for work but haven’t found any yet. As one advocate from South Carolina put it, “It doesn’t matter how hard you’re looking. If you fill out eighty applications a day, if you don’t have the eighty hours a month then it doesn’t count. You’re going to lose your SNAP benefits for three years.”

It could also impact people who have jobs but can’t find steady work at 20 hours or more per week. According to Shawn Fremstad of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “We’ve seen a long-term trend toward more precarious job conditions for low-skilled workers. Even if you get a job, you’re not guaranteed more than 20 hours a week.” While there are provisions to allow for volunteer hours to make up the difference, many people may not be aware of this option.

SNAP changes could also impact people who have physical or mental disabilities that haven’t been officially recognized as such or who have other obstacles such as lack of transportation. And it could take millions of dollars away from local businesses and further stress already over-burdened local food pantries and charities.

“Making people hungrier isn’t going to make them find work faster,” as Rebecca Vallas of the Poverty to Prosperity Program told the Washington Post.

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources is doing a good job of screening and working with this population, but as of last week, over 4,000 were in danger of losing food assistance.

Fortunately, there are ways of making SNAP work requirements work for everyone which may be worth consideration. In Franklin County, Ohio (think Columbus), for example, local food assistance programs and the Ohio Association of Food Banks have come together to create a Work Experience Program which actually meets one-to-one with those affected.

“Our findings indicate that many of our clients struggle with accessing reliable transportation, unstable living conditions, criminal records, education, and both physical and mental health problems,” they report.

The understanding gained by actually talking to people there led to better understandings and outcomes that help them “navigate through many of their challenges, giving our clients a better chance at improving their lives and supporting themselves.”

That’s a worthwhile goal and one that I think people of good will could agree with across the political spectrum.

I’d like to see the state take the time to get it right.

Hunger games, continued (again)

Low income adults without dependents are facing a hit when it comes to basic food access in 9 WV counties, which have a disproportionate share of the state's population. For a good look at the problems this could cause, check out this great article the the Charleston Gazette-Mail's Lori Kersey.

The best outcome for the state of WV, for low income people, and for local charities and food banks is to slow this down and get it right.