Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration is re-implementing the work requirement to receive foods stamps in most of Tennessee’s 95 counties — one in a series of measures that state officials say are intended to get more Tennesseans back into the workforce.
Haslam announced Monday that his administration would move to bring back work rules that were suspended nearly a decade ago to ease the burden of the Great Recession. Pointing to Tennessee’s unemployment rate, which has fallen
as low as 3.3 percent this summer, Haslam says the need to waive work requirements has passed.
“This is the way the law’s designed to work,” Haslam says. “If you’re an able-bodied adult without dependents, you’re supposed to be working, looking for work or getting an education. And we’ve had record low unemployment three months in a row in Tennessee; it’s hard to say we’re under an extraordinary circumstance.”
About 1 million Tennesseans receive payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps. Of those, fewer than 60,000 are believed to be able-bodied adults who aren’t working, receiving training or taking care of a loved one.
Letters informing them of the change are being mailed this week, and the work requirement will begin in May.
The Haslam administration is also proposing changes to the rules for cash welfare payments, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Those reforms are intended to stamp out fraud and eliminate penalties for the working poor. They could also have the effect of raising the amount of cash many families receive by about $100 a month.
The work requirement for SNAP goes back to President Clinton’s administration. Making recipients work 20 hours a week, receive job training or volunteer was part of Washington’s 1996 welfare reform measure, but states were told in 2008 they could waive the requirement to ease the sting of the recession.
In recent years, some studies have
questioned whether work requirements are effective in reducing poverty or in weeding out slackers who could be in the workforce.
Nevertheless, 17 states have already brought back work requirements, and last year, Tennessee quietly reinstated them in nine prosperous counties, including Nashville and its suburbs. Haslam now wants to apply them to all but 16 economically distressed counties, starting next spring.
TANF changes could follow
But that’s just one change Haslam proposes. Others could make welfare programs more generous.
The Haslam administration suggests easing rules that penalize low-income Tennesseans for accepting a job or receiving a raise. Haslam says that would give recipients more incentive to move off welfare.
Haslam also proposes tying caps for welfare to the so-called “standard of need.” Benefits are currently limited to $185 a month. Under his formula, a family of three would receive as much as $277 a month in direct assistance.
Those changes would be tied to anti-fraud measures, including stepping up investigations and joining other states to detect people who are collecting welfare in multiple places.
But unlike the work requirement, changes to the cash welfare program will require legislative approval. Haslam plans to seek it next spring.
House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, says it’s a plan that will need to be studied carefully.
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