According to data released by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, nearly 15,000 able-bodied and childless adults lost access to Wisconsin’s food stamp program, FoodShare, since April.
In April, a law included in the 2013-15 budget took effect and led to the decrease in Wisconsinites eligible for food stamps. Under the law, healthy adults without any minor children at home must either work at least 80 hours per month, enroll in an employment training program or work and participate in the training program for a total of 80 hours a month. If a FoodShare recipient fails to do one of the three options, he or she loses the program benefits for three years.
Sherrie Tussler, Hunger Task Force executive director, said a lot of people think that the current Wisconsin Legislature created the work requirements, but former President Bill Clinton actually created national food stamp work requirements in 1996.
Judi Bartfeld, a consumer science professor at University of Wisconsin, said almost the entire country was under a waiver during the Great Recession which removed employment restrictions. She said it did not make sense to require people to work in order to gain food stamps if there was such a limited number of jobs available.
Tussler said the restrictions are supposed to be reinstated in a state once it no longer had a labor surplus, or on a voluntary basis. She said the state of Wisconsin volunteered for an early return to the work requirements despite still having a labor surplus in many areas, including Milwaukee.
“There would, ultimately, as the economy recovers, come a time when it would become the law of the land again, and it has in other states like Minnesota, but Wisconsin wasn’t economically prepared to employ all of the people on food stamps,” Tussler said.
Tussler said 8,100 of the almost 15,000 who reportedly lost access to food stamps between April and September live in Milwaukee County. She said since the loss of FoodShare benefits, soup kitchens and food pantries have experienced an increase in attendance. She said the people coming to food pantries are not just looking for emergency food, but sustaining food to get them through the month without a FoodShare card.
Tussler said she believes the return to work requirements for able-bodied and childless adults will have a “profound” effect. Currently, the Hunger Task Force food pantries serve about 35,000 individuals on a monthly basis.
If the projections go as scheduled with 60 percent of the adults under work requirements eventually losing their FoodShare card, Tussler said 32,000 people in Milwaukee will no longer have access to food stamps and instead turn to food pantries. She doubts that the charity network could possibly double their supplies, so she predicts shortages.
Tussler said many of the people coming to the food pantries do not understand why they lost their FoodShare card and were unaware of the work requirements. She said if implemented properly and on a voluntary basis, the food stamp employment training program could actually help people get jobs, but right now, it is not working and the state is “causing more harm than good.”
She noted that only 7 percent of childless able-bodied FoodShare recipients either received work or work placement, while volunteering for free is seen as a sign of failure.
Recently there has been an increase in proposed legislation that would affect the food stamp program, including drug testing recipients and the addition of identification pictures to FoodShare cards being two of the possible state Republican-backed changes.
Bartfeld said some of the changes may not stand up in court if challenged because they are not consistent with federal rules. She said the efforts are based on the notion that there is a lot of fraud, but evidence actually shows that fraud has gone down dramatically in recent years. Bartfeld added there really is little evidence that fraud is a problem we should be prioritizing and spending money on.
Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said in a November statement that he supports efforts to combat fraudulent behavior by FoodShare recipients. He applauded the Assembly’s approval of legislation which would allow for FoodShare recipients to be investigated after requesting more than four cards in a year and would place photo identification on cards.
“We hear about abuse and misuse within these programs frequently,” Born said in the statement. “It is important we make every effort to ensure benefits are allocated properly and serve their intended purpose of helping people in true times of need.”
