Some lawmakers look to curb food stamps as area usage rises

About 200 calls per year asking about food assistance come in to Denise Wimp as she works the lines at the United Way of Southeast Missouri.

She is the director of the agency's First Call for Help program, and she said she often hears of situations where people can't make ends meet. They are people seeking help to pay for rent, utilities and food. She refers them to local social service agencies.

"It's not that they aren't working enough; it's that they are working jobs that don't pay enough," said Wimp of many families she hears from who use the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. "And that's what these programs are for -- people in specific situations that need help."

Others believe the SNAP rolls -- the cost of which accounts for about 80 percent of the funds in the current federal farm bill -- need to be trimmed, based on an escalating number of people on it, the cost to taxpayers and a loosening of standards to qualify. Proponents who voted in favor of SNAP cuts say fraud could be reduced, and that people who don't truly qualify for the benefits would be the only people affected.

"The way the food-stamp program has grown is unsustainable," said U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem. "This program was there to help those who needed it the most, but it's doing a lot more than that now."

On Sept. 19, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to cut $39 billion over 10 years for the SNAP portion of a version of a federal farm bill, which also provides funds for farm programs. The move was the latest legislative action after other compromises for a new farm bill failed over the summer in the House and Senate. On Wednesday, members of Congress were working to create a newer version with a better chance of passing both chambers, as a Sept. 30 deadline for the current farm bill nears.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., recently circulated a petition encouraging House members to vote to keep food-stamp funding in the farm bill, but Wednesday alluded to support for limited cuts, as seen in a Senate version of the farm bill, and encouraged Congress to work together.

"There's room for savings in the SNAP program -- and the bipartisan Senate farm bill realizes billions in such savings," McCaskill said in a statement. "But as someone who's spent a career rooting out waste, I can tell you firsthand there are better places to find $40 billion in savings than in cuts to food for Missouri's families, their children and our veterans. The Senate already passed a farm bill on a broad bipartisan basis that is desperately needed by our farmers and ranchers, and that includes responsible reductions in food stamp spending. House Republicans need to stop their fumbling and vote on the comprehensive, bipartisan Senate bill."

Missouri's junior senator, Republican Roy Blunt, who voted for the Senate bill, said in a statement he doesn't expect the Senate to vote on the House proposal, "but it does allow us to go to Conference and work toward a long-term farm bill."

Smith was among 217 House members who voted for the $39 million in cuts to SNAP. Working off numbers that indicate the nationwide cost of SNAP has doubled in the last four years, from $36.7 billion in 2008 to $78 billion in 2012, Smith takes issue with the number of people on food stamps. He said he does not believe all of them should qualify. Another number used by House Republicans: the number of able-bodied adults younger than 50 without children enrolled on the program grew by about 160 percent from 2007 to 2011.

"The problem is that the standards for applying for food stamps has been completely lax," Smith said.

States are moving away from the long-standing use of waivers that allow nonworking, able-bodied adults without children or other dependents to use SNAP. The time those people are able to use SNAP benefits is limited to three months in a three-year period.

A provision in the House bill would eliminate states' ability to use the waivers.

"I believe the states should make the decisions of what affects them," Smith said, "but when this is federal money, I think that it's OK for us to decide what the qualifications are."

The number of people receiving SNAP benefits with a waiver in Smith's 8th Congressional District was not available, and neither is it clear which or how many of the 45,000 households in the 30-county district might see a reduction or elimination of the SNAP benefits they receive.

The district's counties have some of the highest percentages of people in the state using food-stamp benefits. SNAP use is highest in the Missouri Bootheel's Pemiscot County, with a range from 33 percent to 47 percent of the population on food stamps between 2009 and 2011, according to USDA estimates.

Other Bootheel counties, along with the majority of the central and western counties in the district, have between 20 percent and 30 percent of the total population on food stamps. Some of the eastern counties, including Cape Girardeau, Perry and Ste. Genevieve, see lower numbers of 10 percent to 15 percent.

Most counties' populations of persons living below the poverty line closely aligns with the percentage using food stamps, but also follow a national trend that shows the number of people using SNAP is a bit higher than the number living in poverty.

Pemiscot County, for example, had about 30 percent of the total population living below the poverty line from 2007 to 2011, according to U.S. Census figures. Nationwide, an estimated 46.5 million people lived in poverty in 2012, while USDA figures showed 46.7 million people on food stamps in June 2012 to 47.7 million on food stamps in June 2013.

Smith was asked who in his district he thought would fit into the category of being impoverished.

"I think someone who is in poverty as someone who is completely disabled, is not able to work, who is totally reliant on help," he said. "But I think someone who is able-bodied and healthy and can work is not in poverty. I think a lot of it is people can work, but they just choose not to because they can rely on the government."

In June, the number of SNAP recipients in Missouri was estimated at nearly 928,000 by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. A year before, there were about 944,000 recipients statewide.

Most households must be under both the gross and net income limits to receive benefits. A family of four cannot have a gross monthly income of more than $2,498 and a net monthly income of more than $1,921 to qualify for benefits, according to federal guidelines.

The Southeast Missouri Food Bank estimated recently that 62,600 people in the agency's service region of 16 counties are at risk of hunger, while 21,280, or 24.1 percent of children in that same area, do not know from where their next meal is coming.

The USDA and agricultural interests, including the Missouri Farm Bureau have expressed desire to see Congress pass a comprehensive farm bill, regardless of what is done with SNAP benefits.

Missouri ranks 12th of the 50 states for amounts of agricultural subsidies received through the farm bill, according to the Environmental Working Group, which manages a farm subsidy database. The same group shows farms in the 8th Congressional District received an estimated $10.2 billion in subsidies for commodities, crops, conservation and disasters from 1995 to 2012.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627

Percent of total population receiving SNAP benefits by county, 2009

Bollinger 18 percent

Butler 22 percent

Cape Girardeau 11 percent

Carter 25 percent

Crawford 18 percent

Dent 20 percent

Douglas 20 percent

Dunklin 29 percent

Howell 21 percent

Iron 21 percent

Jefferson 9 percent

Madison 18 percent

Mississippi 27 percent

New Madrid 26 percent

Oregon 21 percent

Ozark 20 percent

Pemiscot 33 percent

Perry 12 percent

Phelps 13 percent

Reynolds 22 percent

Ripley 28 percent

Shannon 21 percent

Scott 20 percent

St. Francois 17 percent

Ste. Genevieve 11 percent

Stoddard 17 percent

Texas 16 percent

Washington 25 percent

Wayne 23 percent

Wright 24 percent