Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee may make it harder for single parents to access the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

A new provision in Republicans’ 97-page bill rolled out Monday evening allows for exceptions to the program’s work requirements for some able-bodied adults including certain married parents, without making the same considerations for single parents.

The general work requirements for SNAP benefits include registering for work, participating in SNAP Employment and Training (E&T), taking a suitable job if offered, and not voluntarily quitting or reducing work hours below 30 a week without a good reason, according to the USDA Food and Nutritional Service.

Republicans’ new bill includes a work requirement exception for an individual “responsible for a dependent child 7 years of age or older and is married to, and resides with, an individual who is in compliance” with the work requirements, but contains no equivalent exception for single parents.

In 2022, children in single-parent families made up a 53 percent majority of SNAP recipients, according to a report from the Institute for Family Studies. A whopping 49 percent of those children are living with their mothers, four percent reside with their fathers, and six percent reside with relatives or foster parents.

On top of that, E&T requirements have created something of a Catch-22 within the SNAP benefits program. Congress’s 2018 farm bill, which permitted paid training to be a component in E&T, inadvertently resulted in significant reduction or total loss of food assistance for beneficiaries because the earnings they made ended up counting against their eligibility.

The new legislation would tighten eligibility requirements for SNAP and place a greater financial burden on states instead of the federal government, which is looking to shed millions of dollars in spending as part of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts. Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee have been directed to find $230 billion in potential cuts.

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