County Takes Steps to Avert Massive Food Stamp Cuts

Determined to forestall a major food stamp cut, Los Angeles County has come up with a strategy to meet new federal work requirements so that an estimated 63,000 poor adults will not lose government food assistance.

“The county’s goal is simply to prevent people from losing their food stamps, because they will go hungry and they might become homeless and all of this would place additional burdens on food banks and other charitable programs,” said Phil Ansell, county welfare reform strategist.

Under the new federal welfare law, able-bodied poor adults ages 18 to 50 without minor children will lose food stamps after three months unless they work at least 20 hours a week. The new legislation requires counties to begin the three-month countdown as of last Friday.

The county’s strategy is twofold. First, it would expand its work-for-welfare--or workfare--program in order to allow the food stamp recipients to meet the new work requirements. Second, it would allow the 30,000 participants already in its workfare program to meet the food stamp work requirements.

Since 1949, the county has had a workfare program that provides General Relief welfare payments to poor, able-bodied adults in exchange for working at menial county jobs. County officials estimate that the cost of expanding the workfare program will be minimal.

“Los Angeles County is committed to providing all food stamp recipients, subject to this work requirement, with the opportunity to retain full food stamp benefits,” the county Department of Social Services said in a policy statement.

County officials believe that the potential for cutoffs in Los Angeles would have been substantial because an overall job shortage and high unemployment in some poor areas make it unlikely that many of the recipients could finds jobs within three months.

The food stamp program is financed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture but administered by state and local governments.

In California, it serves 3.2 million poor people--including families, single individuals and children--by providing coupons that can be used like cash to purchase food at grocery stores. The maximum monthly food stamp allowance given a single adult is valued at $120.

Most, but not all, food stamp recipients also receive other forms of government aid.

Advocates for the poor, who consider the new food stamp provision one of the harshest measures in the federal law, say Los Angeles is among the first counties to step forward with a plan to soften its impact by providing enough job opportunities.

But they worry that other counties will not take similar action and will allow poor adults to lose food stamps without offering work opportunities that could prevent the cuts.

Casey McKeever, an attorney with the Western Center on Law & Poverty Inc., said many counties are unaware that there are ways to avoid the cuts.

He said the state had advised counties of the three-month time limit but has not told them that they can set up workfare programs that prevent the cuts.

He said elimination of the food stamp provision affecting childless adults is a top priority of advocates for the poor who will be lobbying Congress to repeal that provision, along with welfare cuts that affect legal immigrants.

Of the provisions in the new federal law, the food stamp cut for childless adults has one of the earliest effective dates.

“If there is any hope for restoration of cuts, those will be the areas of emphasis when Congress reconvenes,” McKeever said.

Frank Tamborello, food program advocate for the Southern California Interfaith Hunger Coalition, said the county action offers some relief to food pantries and charitable organizations that feared that the first wave of food stamp cuts would put more demands on their strapped resources.

But he echoed the concerns that other counties in Southern California might not follow Los Angeles’ example.

He said his group is hoping that the state will ask the federal government to exempt from the food stamp cuts areas of the state that have high unemployment or few available jobs.

The county is coming forth with its plan even before the USDA issues guidelines for implementing the food stamp cuts.

Mary Robertson, who heads the food stamp arm of the county’s Department of Public Social Services, said the county believes its strategy clearly meets the requirements of the law, but it won’t know for sure until the new USDA rules are issued.

The new law allows states to use workfare to meet its work requirements and provides exemptions for areas where there is high employment or a low number of available jobs.

The exemption requests must go through the state, and Wilson administration officials say they have yet to decide how those will be handled.

“We have made no clear decisions yet,” said Corinne Chee, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services. “We’re just into the negotiating, debating, looking-into stage. Until we get firm [USDA] guidelines, we can’t do anything.”