On Monday, the Trump administration's new requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, went into effect. One of the major charges is to work requirements.
It's a step in the right direction.
President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act raised the age limit from 54 to 64 for people who must work, train or volunteer at least 80 hours per month in "qualifying" activities to receive assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The new rules apply to those just joining SNAP or at their next recertification.
The size and scope of SNAP, which supports more than 40 million Americans, came under renewed scrutiny during the government shutdown, as funding for the sweeping food assistance program neared a funding lapse.
The work requirements seem like a rather low minimum, especially for recipients who are healthy and able-bodied. The SNAP program is claimed by over 40 million Americans, as noted above, and there has been a lot of controversy in how the program is administered and in the amount of fraud uncovered.
All SNAP recipients are now to be required to recertify their eligibility.
In FY2024, SNAP served an average of 41.7 million participants per month — about 12% of Americans — costing taxpayers roughly $99 billion.
The Congressional Budget Office projects the new requirements will reduce the average monthly number of SNAP recipients by about 2.4 million over the next 10 years.
Just reducing the fraud and waste will save the taxpayers a lot of money. But there's a lot more that needs doing.
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While the work requirements and recertification are good ideas, there's a lot more that could be done. Incentives are key, and under the current system, the incentives are all wrong. Next steps should be strict limits on what can and cannot be purchased with the benefit allotment. It would be better to have qualifying recipients receive a weekly food ration of, say, rice, beans, turkey or chicken, maybe some cheese and pasta. No candy. No sugary drinks. Nothing that doesn't have nutritional value.
SNAP isn't the only place where the Trump administration is looking to cut expenditures of the taxpayers' money.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posted Friday on X that his department is set to block illegal immigrants from accessing federal benefits.
Bessent said his department will issue proposed regulations clarifying that the refunded portions of certain individual income tax benefits are no longer available to illegal and other non-qualified aliens, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit and the Saver’s Match Credit.
Again, a good start. These measures will be roundly condemned by the left, even the part about denying taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens. We belabor the obvious by pointing out that any government benefits, including refundable tax credits, should be strictly limited, temporary, and for American citizens - not illegal aliens.
Democrats and the legacy media (but I repeat myself) will oppose these reforms with every fiber of their beings. It seems staggeringly obvious to anyone with enough smarts to pound sand that we shouldn't reward illegal aliens with government benefits, but that's where we are today.
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