Joe Biden Agrees To Stricter Work Requirements For Food Assistance Program

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden agreed to stricter work requirements for some federal safety net programs, making a key concession to House Republicans in exchange for their support to hike the debt limit for two years.

The tentative agreement struck between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Saturday night would also hold spending flat for 2024 and impose limits for 2025, which Republican leaders are touting as big wins in the negotiations.

The deal omits Republicans’ most controversial “work requirement” proposal, which would have denied Medicaid health care coverage to unemployed adults without dependents, many of whom gained coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act. For most of its history, Medicaid has not limited benefits based on employment.

But according to a source familiar with the negotiation, the deal includes a version of the Republican proposal to tighten the existing work requirement in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food benefits to more than 20 million households.

“We have additional work requirements that are quite consequential,” Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) told reporters Sunday morning.

Under SNAP’s current rules, childless able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 49 can have only three months of benefits unless they work, volunteer or participate in a training program for 20 hours per week.

The Biden-McCarthy deal would raise the age threshold for the SNAP work rule to 54, a key Republican demand.

But the deal exempts veterans and the homeless from the work requirement altogether — a major and unexpected change that would likely reduce the impact of the higher age threshold. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the original Republican proposal would have cut SNAP enrollment by 275,000. In a separate analysis of SNAP’s existing work requirements, the CBO has said that many people who would lose benefits are homeless.

The compromise also makes the work requirement adjustments temporary, sunsetting them in 2030, in another win for Biden.

“States that play games with how they roll over funds, and they accrue more account balances they use on other things, we take that gamesmanship down dramatically and significantly,” McHenry said.

However, the agreement gives in to Republicans on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash benefits to fewer than 1 million households. Republicans wanted TANF, the program most commonly called “welfare,” to require “work activities” from a higher percentage of families receiving benefits. The agreement includes a modified version of the GOP demand; it’s not clear how many families would be affected.

Hard-line conservative Republicans trashed the deal on Sunday, complaining that it includes “virtually no cuts” they initially sought and that it spares key Democratic initiatives, including the vast majority of funding to the IRS Democrats approved last year and Biden’s student loan debt cancellation program.

The deal would freeze spending this year, but, when adjusted for the growth of inflation, it would be scored by the Congressional Budget Office as a spending reduction, a technicality making some conservatives unhappy.

The agreement does, however, include a modest 3% increase in defense spending, as proposed by the Biden administration. Republicans sought an even bigger boost to the Pentagon to keep up with inflation.

Progressives, meanwhile, were notably more muted in reacting to the deal. House Democrats are scheduled to receive a briefing from the White House on the tentative agreement later on Sunday.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she would withhold judgment on the agreement until she sees the legislative text, which often surprises with details omitted from an initial negotiated framework.

“I’m not happy with some of the things I’m hearing about but they are not cutting the deficit and they are not cutting spending,” Jayapal said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” disputing claims from House GOP leadership that the agreement locked in major spending cuts.

Jayapal said it’s “really unfortunate the president opened the door” to stricter work requirements for food assistance programs, but added that “perhaps because of the exemptions it really will be OK, that I don’t know.”

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) signaled that most Democrats may ultimately learn to live with the agreement considering the threat of defaulting on the nation’s financial obligations. During an interview on Fox News, Himes said it’s “not a bill that’s going to make any Democrats happy. But it’s a small enough bill that, in the service of actually not destroying the economy this week, may get Democratic votes.”