Enrollees must show they have worked or volunteered a minimum of 80 hours a month
New restrictions to the country’s biggest anti-hunger program went into effect on Monday, making food access more difficult for roughly 850,000 people in New Jersey.
Finalized on Monday, the restrictions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as “food stamps,” impose several new requirements on enrollees. Chief among them is a requirement to show and document that one has worked or volunteered a minimum of 80 hours a month.
Recipients may also be enrolled in training programs and meet the new requirements…
Andrea Hetling, professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, said people on public assistance, such as through SNAP, often are working or are trying to find work.
“Many individuals would prefer to be working,” Hetling said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “Often they’re experiencing some type of challenge, whether that’s kind of a long-lived or a short-lived one, that prevents them from fully engaging in the labor market right now.”
Such challenges could be serious events, she said, like homelessness, a physical disability or a mental health episode. Or it might be something milder like a lapse in seasonal work or the case of someone waiting for a job to start.
“For so many individuals who are not as securely tied to the labor market, jobs can fluctuate and your hours can get cut, and it can be seasonal,” Hetling said. “All of a sudden, you were working 30 hours a week, but now it’s only 15, and it puts you at a point where you can’t really afford things.”