Supporters of House Bill 367 say losing food assistance would encourage able-bodied adults to get a job. Opponents say the bill would harm local economies, increase administrative burdens on school lunch programs and disqualify people for having even small savings. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A bill that backers say is intended to encourage more Kentuckians to join the workforce but which advocates warn could lead to food insecurity passed out of a House committee Thursday along party lines.?

Among other things, House Bill 367 seeks to give the General Assembly power over decisions about work requirements for Kentucky’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP. It passed the House Standing Committee on Families and Children 11-3 after about an hour of discussion. It can go to the full House for consideration now.?

Sponsor Rep. Wade Williams, R-Earlington, said he wants to close “wildly abused loopholes” in the assistance program that are letting “34,000 able-bodied adults in Kentucky” be “on food stamps today between the ages of 18 and 50 who have no dependents.”?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says Kentucky had 112,000 job openings in the state as of November, down from 118,000 in October.?

“Now that the pandemic is behind us, it’s time for us to think about solutions on how to get more workers off the sideline and back into the workforce,” he said during the committee.?

HB367:?

• Restores the federal asset test, ending the Cabinet for Health and Family Services’ ability to waive asset limits through the Broad Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE). Advocates say this would exclude households that have savings worth $2,750. This number increases to $4,250 for seniors and people with disabilities.
• Would remove the Cabinet for Health and Family Services’ ability to waive work requirements for SNAP eligibility, giving that power to the General Assembly.?
• Reduces the gross income threshold for SNAP-eligible Kentuckians to 130% of the federal poverty level.?

Scott Centorino, the deputy policy director at the Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability, said the proposed reforms “will protect this program for the truly needy, the folks who can’t just go out and get a job and really need this to support themselves.”?

“We love SNAP,” Williams said. “I think it’s a great program. And that’s why we’re here. We want to make sure that SNAP is available for all those people that need it.”??

Advocates warn of ‘downstream harms’?

Several people testified against the bill in committee.?

HB367 could cause “downstream harms,” warned Jordan Ojile, an advocate with Feeding Kentucky, which is a nonprofit that aims to fight hunger.?

For example, “When more people go hungry,” he said, “more people need health care.”??

If people who need food cannot get it through SNAP, he said, they will lean more heavily on food banks.

Tyler Offerman, a Food Justice Organizer with the Kentucky Equal Justice Center, said that in pre-pandemic times, SNAP fed seven meals to a food bank’s one.?

“There is no feasible way that food banks will be able to pick up that capacity,” he told the Lantern.?

Kimmie Ishmael, the policy campaign coordinator with the Community Farm Alliance, fears “ripple effects” of the bill will hurt Kentucky’s farmers, who she said sometimes need food stamps to subsidize incomes of less than $38,000 a year.??

It “will not only impact the farmers, but our local food system as a whole,” Ishmael said. “These unintended consequences could hurt the growth of small farmers across our commonwealth in many ways.”?

The asset test concerns her too, she testified, saying:“This change would require farmers to either become completely destitute before getting assistance with food, or else de-incentivize them for saving.”?

“The small ripple effects of this bill not only impact hungry people, but it’ll impact those who feed them,” Ishmael added. “And we know farmers are the backbone of this state. They deserve to farm with dignity.”?

Dustin Pugel, the policy director at the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, called the bill a “recipe for hunger and for hardship.”??

“If we start cutting off tens or hundreds of thousands of people from SNAP benefits like House Bill 367 could do, that’s going to cost us tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in local economies,” he testified. “It’s a real problem.”?

School lunches?

Several people testified that the bill could cost some families their free or reduced school lunches.?

“This will not actually change any eligibility standards for the school lunch program and other programs in Kentucky,” the FGA’s Centorino said. “It may change how people actually become eligible for those programs.”?

Offerman with Kentucky Equal Justice Center said “for sure it will” hurt school lunch access because people who enroll in SNAP are “directly certified for free and reduced lunch.”?

“What they’re trying to say is … ‘but they’re still eligible, so they can just go to their school and apply,’” he told the Lantern. “And so, yes, that is true. And many of them will not”? because of the paperwork involved or because the topic is too confusing.?

Schools can qualify for a Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows them to serve free food and is based on the community’s poverty levels and participation in other programs, like SNAP.?

“CEP was adopted to reduce the administrative burden on schools and determine eligibility for school meals,” Ojile with Feeding Kentucky said. “This will just be putting that burden right back on top of them.”?

‘lululemon and Starbucks:’ What do other lawmakers think??

Several committee members took issue with the asset tests, worried people with little in the bank might still need assistance.?

“I’m very concerned that … we will be discouraging people from being fiscally responsible,” said Rep. Lisa Willner, a Louisville Democrat. That is “the exact opposite, I think, of what the members of this committee are wanting: for people to be independent and standing on their own two feet.”?

The bill, Willner said, is “probably well intentioned but really wrongheaded. And I think it’s going to hurt a lot of people.”?

Louisville Democrat Rep. Josie Raymond asked if a child care center employee making $11 an hour can have a diamond ring and that ring be counted as an asset. Williams said that “yes, that’s a household good.”?

Raymond went on to call the asset test “fairly preposterous.”?

Rep. Stephanie Dietz, R-Edgewood, had another take.?

“In my job as a family law attorney, I get my nose stuck in everybody’s business, in all their finances. What I have seen as we live in an age where it’s lululemon and Starbucks,” she said. “Sometimes the hardest thing I do is I look at clients and say, ‘you’re living a lifestyle of debt.’”?

“I agree that food should be number one,” Dietz continued. Speaking about a Kentuckian saving money for a car for their child, she added: “So if food is number one, the car is not number one. So maybe the money that’s being saved should go for the food. But I think that there should be an educational component for people to learn how to spend their money when they’re saving, and we all don’t need to have lululemon and Starbucks and a new car.”??