SNAP and Work Requirements
By Albert B. Kelly
Let me say up front that I’m in favor of work. To the degree
that a person can work, I believe that they should work. Beyond the obvious
point of a person paying his or her own way in life, I believe that there is a
sense of pride and self-respect that accrues to an individual when they earn
their own way. I also believe that people need a sense of purpose and belonging
and a job often provides these things and this has its own value.
I mention these things on the heels of the recent farm bill
making its way through Congress. That piece of legislation requires able-bodied
adults to work or be enrolled in a job training program in order to receive
SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits. On the face of it,
as someone who believes in the value of honest work and job training, that
seems reasonable enough. But when you start to unpack things, it may not be that
simple.
For one thing, where are these jobs going to come from? We
live in a day and age when, without exaggeration, roughly 45% of the jobs now
performed by people will be automated or otherwise eliminated over the course
of the next decade or so. While we’ve gotten greater convenience, more productivity,
and lower prices on goods from our embrace of digital technology, the price has
been the loss of jobs held by people.
This isn’t anyone’s fault, it’s just the way it goes with
technology- what economists like to call “creative destruction”. It’s true that
some job loss has come about because of outsourcing to cheap labor overseas, but
the bulk of the job loss is because of technology and that means these jobs are
not coming back.
This job loss is evident from the self-serve kiosks and the
checkout lines that sit idle in places like Home Depot- it won’t be long before
even entry level jobs at fast food restaurants will be automated away. Malls
are being crushed by Amazon and Walmart has only so many openings so I’m not
sure where folks will be able to find work.
According to the NJ Department of Labor, there were roughly
330,000 job openings in the state from October 2016 through September 2017. It
sounds like a lot, but the majority of openings were in finance, insurance,
health care, administration, and waste management. With the exception of maybe some
waste management and CNA openings, the bulk of these jobs were likely outside
the reach of too many SNAP recipients.
Even assuming you can find a job, depending on where you
live, transportation can be a huge obstacle whether it’s because there’s no
mass transit where you live or because an insurance company used an algorithm
that factored in your prior work history, zip code, and credit history and
suggested a rate that you can’t afford. For the over 1,600 single parent-households
in Bridgeton there may be the issue of child care as well.
Yet the Texas Congressman championing the bill, Michael
Conway, sees the cuts as a “springboard out of poverty to a good paying job.”
If it’s a springboard, it’s one to greater food insecurity and greater hardship
for a lot of households. But the bill was not just about SNAP requirements; it
also has many provisions for farmers such as subsidized crop insurance.
If Congress gets into a spitting match over this bill, which
seems likely given the stereotypes about SNAP recipients and the ideologies
involved, does this jeopardize some of the provisions needed to help our
agriculture industry? Who knows, but throw in this whole mess involving tariffs
and trade wars and there’s a lot at risk here.
I’m also concerned about “job training”. While some programs
are effective and give participants real skills, others are just window
dressing that provides no real marketable skills or credentials that someone
can leverage into a decent paying job. And some of the same problems
surrounding a job, (i.e. transportation, child care, etc.) remain with a job
training program.
My sense is that the assumptions behind this bill are that
all problems lie with SNAP recipients and if that’s true, then this is just a punitive
requirement. The problems are far more systemic and if the goal is real reform,
then it shouldn’t be about the benefits, but the conditions that make these
benefits necessary in the first place. Let’s hope they get it right.