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ILLINOISANS ON FOOD STAMPS THIS THANKSGIVING, 50K RECIPIENTS WILL SOON
NEED JOBS
Illinois Policy Institute/
Ben Szalinski
This
Thanksgiving, about 17,500 more Illinoisans will be using food stamps.
By New Year’s, about 50,000 Cook County recipients must find jobs or
lose benefits. |
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 As families prepare to celebrate the bounty of Thanksgiving,
new numbers from the federal government show Illinois was one of only two states
to increase the number of people using food stamps from a year earlier.
An extra 17,500 Illinoisans were part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program in August compared to a year earlier. Illinois had 1.78 million
residents collecting food stamps, which is 14% of the population and higher than
any neighboring state.
Cook County has about 826,000 food stamp recipients, and about 50,000 of them
will need to find work to keep receiving those benefits after Jan. 1.
The 50,000 Cook County residents who are under age 50, able-bodied and have no
dependents will only receive three months of food assistance over three years if
they do not find at least 80 hours of work per month, according to the Chicago
Tribune. Job training, volunteering, or other work-related activities count
toward the hourly requirement.
 The SNAP work requirement has been in place since 1996, but Illinois has been
able to claim a waiver from the rule because of high unemployment. Unemployment
rates fell so low, first in DuPage County in 2018 and now in Cook County, that
county residents now must comply with the program’s work requirement.
Illinois is still seeking waivers for the other 100 counties, and they are
expected to be approved. Of the state’s 1.78 million SNAP recipients, about
162,000 are able-bodied adults without dependents. The Cook County changes
affect less than 3% of the state’s recipients or about 6% of the county’s
recipients. The benefits are worth about $200 a month for a single adult, and
Illinois distributes them using the Link card.
Cook County unemployment has fallen to 3.9%, below the national average of 4%.
States can only receive waivers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for
areas with high unemployment, but the Trump Administration has pushed to make it
more difficult for states to obtain the SNAP work waivers.
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Some worry the work requirement will increase food
insecurity. Private and government agencies are working to find
resources that will help the 50,000 individuals find jobs so they
can continue receiving benefits, or ideally earn enough by working
so they don’t need them. Social service workers worry people will
lose the food stamps due to an inconsistent number of work hours,
prior criminal records, trouble holding a job or a lack of
transportation.
The Greater Chicago Food Depository is working to
make sure food banks are adequately stocked for what they suspect
will be a greater number of people in need come January.
SNAP participation had fallen in Illinois in recent years, but poor
economic recovery drove up the recent numbers.
Illinois lawmakers and Gov. J.B. Pritzker over the summer changed
state law so SNAP benefits could be used at fast food restaurants,
saying there was a need to help those who cannot cook or get food
for themselves.
If Illinois wants to curb the growth in food stamp
dependence by next Thanksgiving, and help create jobs for those
50,000 Cook County residents who will need them, then state leaders
should work to reform the state’s economy. Raising taxes through a
progressive state income tax won’t improve Illinois’ economy any
more than past tax hikes have. Higher taxes will only aggravate the
No. 1 reason Illinoisans say they think about moving.
The only way to improve the state’s economy is by addressing the
reason taxes are rising so rapidly, and that is the growth of public
pension costs. A constitutional amendment that protects current
retirement benefits while controlling the growth of future,
not-yet-earned benefits is the only way to tame the pension beast,
stop tax increases and improve the job climate so fewer Illinoisans
need to rely on food stamps for their next meal.
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