Fourteen U.S. states, along with New York City and Washington, D.C., are suing to block a new Trump administration rule that tightens work requirements for people on food stamps, arguing that the regulation ignores the labor issues facing poor Americans.
The rule will also lead to higher state costs due to hunger and higher health care expenditures, as well as from increased administrative burdens to handle the new regulation, the lawsuit alleges. The states and cities allege that the new rule forces them to rely on overly broad jobless data that ignores the realities of regions around the country where good-paying jobs can still be hard to come by.
The new rule was announced in December as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's push to reform food stamps, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Increasing work requirements for adults between the ages of 18 to 49 who don't have children and who are "able bodied" will encourage them to return to work, Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said at the time. The food stamp program was meant to provide "assistance through difficult times, not a way of life," he said.
The new rule doesn't apply to children or their parents, disabled Americans, or those over age 50. The food stamp program limits Americans to three months of benefits, unless they're either working or in training for 20 hours a week. Under the old regulations, states could waive those limits if a region's unemployment rate is 20% above the national rate, which stood at 3.5% in December.
That currently places the waiver threshold at an unemployment rate of about 4.2%; the new rule will increase it to 6%, making it harder for some states to qualify for the waiver and expand food aid. As of November, only one state — Alaska — had a jobless rate above 6%.
The states that are suing are: California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.
“SNAP has served as our country’s primary response to hunger since 1977, including my own when I was a young, single father and college student,” said Nevada Attorney Aaron Ford. “46,000 Nevadans stand to lose their food stamp benefits if this rule moves forward, including nearly 2,000 Nevadans in our rural communities. My office is taking a stand against the Trump Administration’s attempt to cut this important safety-net program proven to help people lift themselves out of poverty.”
(CBS News contributed to this report.)
