The food assistance cuts the Trump administration finalized this month will take food away from as many as 700,000 people. That's horrific, but it's not the worst of it.
This round just went after the working poor, forcing them into a bureaucratic nightmare and limiting their access, making them prove that they are working to receive Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits (SNAP). But what the administration has in mind with the rest of the rules would result in another 1.3 million people losing nutritional assistance by limiting their assets. Meaning someone working could lose their assistance because they have a smartphone or a car or an electric wheelchair. Essayist Jamison Hill is one of those people. He explains his fears in a column for the Washington Post.
He has myalgic encephalomyelitis, a debilitating chronic illness that leaves him unable to work a conventional job, so he worked from home as an editorial assistant, 45 hours a week. He makes just $2,000 a month, after taxes, "barely enough to pay my rent and bills each month," he writes. Then he got sicker. Now he says "My inability to walk or speak above a whisper makes it impossible for me to work." He gets $200 a month in SNAP assistance. Under new proposed rules, as a disabled person he could only have less $3,500 in assets to keep it. He has a bit in savings, a smartphone, an electric wheelchair, and all of that would put him over the limit. He'd have to use most of his disability payments for food. In his words:
I'm one medical bill away from being unable to cover rent or utilities. Putting a $3,500 cap on my assets prevents me from building a financial foundation to protect me from unexpected expenses, much less improve my quality of life. That's another harsh reality of the proposal: It makes it much easier for households to fall off what's called the "benefit cliff," in which a small boost in their circumstances—like getting more work hours, or a slightly higher hourly wage—causes them to lose government assistance, leaving them worse off than before. The rule has a deep irony: In the name of encouraging self-sufficiency in people on food stamps, it undercuts what little stability we have.
Trump is pushing these changes through regulations because the then-Republican House and Senate thought that they were too harsh to pass in the 2018 Farm Bill. Republicans on the agriculture committees in both chambers rejected them. That's how inhumane this administration is.