WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican attempt to expand work requirements for federal food aid in debt legislation moving through Congress would increase federal spending by $2.1 billion over 10 years — far from the cuts GOP lawmakers had promised.
A compromise on the food aid requirements between House Republicans and President Joe Biden as the nation nears a disastrous government default may have backfired for the Republicans, who won the new work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for some able-bodied recipients in exchange for Democratic demands to drop work requirements for some other, more vulnerable recipients such as veterans and homeless people.
An estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released late Tuesday said that while the new work requirements in SNAP would save money, the added benefits pushed by Democrats would cost more — and add almost 80,000 people to the rolls in an average month.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., dismissed the estimates.
“Come see me in a year, and I’ll show you how much we actually saved,” McCarthy said as he left a late-night meeting Tuesday with his members. “You watch — a lot of people are going to get jobs now.”
Republicans are still claiming victory on the debt compromise after trying for several decades to expand work rules for food aid and other government assistance programs that were first put into place in 1996 welfare overhaul. But it’s unclear if the new budget estimate might cost Republican votes.
The overall bill negotiated by McCarthy and Biden would still cut spending over the next two years and raise the nation’s debt ceiling to avert a calamitous default. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that if Congress doesn’t act, the government could run out of cash to pay its bills as soon as Monday.
A look at work requirements in the debt bill, and the history and politics behind it:
A HIGHER AGE LIMIT FOR WORK REQUIREMENTS
Current law requires most able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 49 without dependents to work or attend training programs for at least 80 hours a month if they want to receive more than three months of SNAP benefits within a three-year period. The bill phases in higher age limits for those work requirements, bringing the maximum age to 54 by 2025.
But as part of the compromise with Democrats, the provision is slated to expire five years later. At that time, the maximum age for the work requirements would drop back down to 49.
The CBO said that the new work rules on their own would reduce SNAP spending by $6.5 billion over 10 years. But the exemptions added by Democrats for veterans, homeless people and others would cost $6.8 billion over the same period. The agency said the bill would cost another $1.2 billion because the changes would overlap somewhat as they were phased in.
McCarthy and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., said they believe that the CBO estimate is incorrect and that some recipients who are already exempted from the work requirements may have been double counted.
While some Republicans who are voting against the bill say the final compromise is not enough — Texas Rep. Chip Roy, one of the chief opponents of the bill, called the work requirements “weak” — Republicans involved in the negotiations praised the changes as reasonable.
“These requirements are not mean,” South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson told CNN on Sunday. “They’re not onerous. It’s 20 hours-a-week work training, education or volunteering at a local food bank for people who are able-bodied, not pregnant, don’t have kids at home, live in an area where there are jobs.”
