Hamilton Place Strategies

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Three Things To Know

Ahead Of 2018 Farm Bill Reauthorization
Findings: AS policymakers begin to here are three things policy-
outline the 2018 Farm Bill, makers should keep in mind
enduring debates around the about SNAP and the many
• The SNAP
omnibus package have pre- Americans participating in
participation rate dictably gained steam. The the program:
has remained Farm Bill touches on a vari-
elevated. ety of topics, from farm pro- • The SNAP participation
duction and conservation to rate has remained elevat-
• Increases in SNAP regulatory programs and in- ed despite improvement
spection services. The largest in the unemployment rate
participation
share of de- since the re-
have been more bate will likely cession.
concentrated in the center around The largest share of
Southeast. the largest debate will center • Increases
share of the around the largest in SNAP par-
• States with the bill itself: the ticipation have
share of the bill itself:
Supplemental been more
highest SNAP The Supplemental
Nutrition As- concentrated
participation rates sistance Pro- Nutrition Assistance in the South-
have shifted red. gram, or SNAP. Program. east, and par-
Debates recur ticipants are in
around wheth- both rural and
er this is the year for the urban communities.
program to separate from
the bill and live on its own, • States with the highest
Tucker Warren
as then-House Budget Com- SNAP participation rates
Rob Terra
mittee Chairman Paul Ryan have shifted red in presi-
Andrea Christianson
(R-Wisc.) had suggested in dential elections.
Ali Rohde
2013, or if reform to the ex-
Helen Hathaway
pansive program might im- Elevated Participation
Asha Thanki
prove the benefits for SNAP
participants without breaking SNAP participation rates
the budget. have historically maintained
The views expressed in this doc- a similarly-paced rise and
ument represent those of the As these and other conver- fall to the unemployment
authors alone. sations pick up in Congress, rate. After rates declined in
the late 1990s, the 2002
Farm Bill focused on access
to the program and sim-
plification of its rules. This
resulted in lowered barriers
to entry to the program, with
the bill restoring eligibility
to qualified foreign nationals
who had been in the U.S. for
at least five years, to immi-
grants receiving disability
payments, and to immi-
grant children, regardless of
length of time in the U.S.,
among other changes.1 These
changes in the 2002 iter-
ation caused participation
in SNAP to rise, and the the
participation rate began to
diverge from its parallel pace
with the unemployment rate. toward a subset of Ameri- receiving food assistance at
cans who may have been less the time. While the rate has
More significantly, as un- likely to participate in SNAP.2 declined since 2014, poli-
employment began to de- Or, as a result of SNAP’s ex- cymakers will still be de-
crease post-Great Recession, pansion and ability to fill in ciding the details of a pro-
SNAP participation remained where other temporary as- gram whose benefits remain
uniquely elevated after the sistance programs fell short, far-reaching across the U.S.
2009 Recovery Act (as seen the program has transformed
in Exhibit 1). into a stabilizer for families Regional Intensity
that do not qualify for oth-
Though both rates are slow- er assistance programs, as Americans living in the
ing, the SNAP participation postulated by the Urban In- Southeast have always had
rate has not stitute’s Shei- a particular interest in the
returned to its The SNAP la Zedlewski, Farm Bill. With their agricul-
pre-Recession participation rate Elaine Wax- ture-based economies, they
numbers in man, and Craig look to Congress for various
has not returned to
the way that Gundersen farm subsidies to be includ-
the unem-
its pre-Recession in their 2012 ed in the bill. This subset
ployment rate numbers in the way paper, “SNAP’s of the population, however,
seems strongly that unemployment Role In The also has a vested interest in
to have done seems to have done. Great Recession the food security provided by
so. There are And Beyond.”3 SNAP.
a myriad of
takes on why this could be. It Regardless, when policymak- While SNAP participation has
is possible (as Robert Shap- ers debated the 2014 Farm been on the rise all across
iro observed for Brookings) Bill, they had been forced to the country for the last cou-
that most job opportunities consider a higher participa- ple decades, the increases
post-Recession were for tion rate in the program than have been particularly con-
degree-holders, and thus had ever been seen before— centrated in the Southeast.
recovery has been skewed one in five Americans was In 1990, only Louisiana and
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Mississippi had more than
15% of their populations
reliant on SNAP, according to
the U.S. Department of Ag-
riculture. By 2015, over 15%
of the population in every
southeastern state were
SNAP beneficiaries.4 (See
Exhibit 2.)
Oregon is a stark outlier
of the national geographic
trends. Data from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture
shows that nearly 20% of
Oregon’s residents were
enrolled in SNAP in 2015—a
significant contrast to its
neighbors California and
Idaho, which had 11.3% and
11.9% of their populations
reliant on SNAP, respective-
ly.5
Oregon’s generous eligibility
requirements for the pro-
gram mean that someone
who qualifies for SNAP in
Oregon wouldn’t qualify if
he or she were a resident of
ten states with the highest
SNAP participation rates in
election years from 1992 to
2016 and how each state
voted in that year’s pres-
idential election. A state’s
SNAP participation rate is
defined as the number of
SNAP participants in the
state divided by the state’s
population.
The overall shift of SNAP
participation from Demo-
cratic-voting to Republi-
can-voting states is due to
a couple of factors. First,
the 1996 Farm Bill and its
ensuing “Welfare Reform”
Mississippi. Catlin Nchako largely reduced the scope
and Lexin Cai’s 2017 research of SNAP. This means that
shows that 25% of Oregon’s the top SNAP-participating
SNAP participants receive states thereafter were the
an income 100% above the ones with populations most
poverty line, while only 9% in need and who still quali-
of Mississippi’s SNAP benefi- fied under the more restric-
ciaries meet the same stan- tive eligibility requirements.
Second, many of the states
dard.6
that voted for the Demo-
cratic presidential candidate
Political Shift
later voted for the Republi-
can candidate in subsequent
While welfare programs are
elections. These include
generally associated with
Tennessee, Kentucky, West
the political
Virginia, and
left, a closer
The states with the Louisiana. The
look at SNAP
beneficiaries highest participation 1992-2016
time period
tells a more rates in SNAP have encompasses
nuanced story. shifted to include
the decline of
Over the past right-leaning states conservative
two decades,
or have become more Democrats
the states with and the rise of
the highest right-leaning.
red Southern
participation states.
rates in SNAP
have shifted to include The fact that the states with
right-leaning states or have the highest SNAP partic-
become more right-leaning ipation rates have mostly
states. Exhibit 3 displays the shifted to be politically con-
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servative is surprising, given
that the Republican political
ideology does not tradition-
ally welcome and encourage
welfare programs.7 Inter-
estingly, a large portion of
SNAP beneficiaries do not
widely support the welfare
program, part of the larger
phenomenon described in
Thomas Frank’s book What’s
the Matter with Kansas? In
which politically conservative
Americans often vote against
their own economic inter-
ests.8
Conclusion
As discussion around the
2018 Farm Bill picks up, it is
important that policymak-
ers know who exactly will
be affected by any changes.
SNAP is a critical component
of the bill and merits an es-
pecially deep understanding.
Whether Congress decides to
increase or decrease funding,
tighten or roll back eligibility
requirements, or complete-
ly divorce SNAP legislation
from the larger Farm Bill,
Americans in every state and
of every political party will
be affected.
Endnotes
1
“Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP),”
United States Department
Of Agriculture: Food And
Nutrition Service, accessed
1/30/16.
<https://www.fns.usda.gov/
snap/short-history-snap>.
2
Robert Shapiro, “The New
Economics Of Jobs Is Bad
News For Working-Class
Americans - And Maybe For
Trump,” Brookings Institu-
tion, 1/16/18.
<https://www.brookings.
edu/blog/fixgov/2018/01/16/
the-new-economics-of-
jobs-is-bad-news-for-
working-class-americans-
and-maybe-for-trump/>.
3
Sheila Zedlewski, Elaine
Waxman, and Craig Gun-
dersen, “SNAP’s Role In The
Great Recession And Be-
yond,” Urban Institute and
Feeding America, July 2012.
<https://www.urban.org/
sites/default/files/publica-
tion/25626/412613-SNAP-
s-Role-in-the-Great-Re-
cession-and-Beyond.PDF>.
4
“Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP),”
United States Department
Of Agriculture: Food And
Nutrition Service, accessed
1/30/16.
<https://www.fns.usda.gov/
snap/short-history-snap>.
5
Ibid.
6
Lexin Cai and Catlin Ncha-
ko, “A Closer Look at Who
Benefits from SNAP: State-
by-State Fact Sheets,” Cen-
ter on Budget and Policy
Priorities, 2/16/17.
<https://www.cbpp.org/
research/a-closer-look-
at-who-benefits-from-
snap-state-by-state-fact-
sheets>.
7
“Republican Platform: Great
American Families, Educa-
tion, Healthcare, and Crimi-
nal Justice,” Republican Na-
tional Committee, accessed
2/9/18.
<https://www.gop.com/
platform/renewing-ameri-
can-values/>.
8
Thomas Frank, What’s The
Matter with Kansas?: How
Conservatives Won the Heart of
America (New York: Metro-
politan Books, 2004).
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