New Orleans The midterms may have brightened the day, but Trump’s budget bill remains a dark night for millions as they are forced off of food stamp and medical benefits in ways both direct and hidden. I wrote about how we are trying to meet this challenge in Convergence Magazine which ran on November 10th under this title. This is Part I of that essay. Part II will cover why we think this will work and issue a call to join us.
ACORN is forming a new organization to bring together recipients of SNAP benefits to help them meet work requirements by fighting back against the cuts.
Over the last year, more than 5 million people lost SNAP benefits–often called food stamps–across the United States at an accelerated pace that the Congressional Budget Office had not expected until 2030. In Arizona the food stamp rolls have already been more than halved. In Louisiana, Georgia, Nevada, and Florida, 20% have lost food support.
In January 2027, even more drastic cuts in Medicaid requirements will arrive in full force. Fourteen million are predicted to lose their benefits, including two million in New York City alone. Why? Because of Trump’s Big Bad Budget Bill which eviscerated benefits for lower income families in order to pay for continued benefits for the rich.
None of this should be news at this late date. More stringent work requirements of eighty (80) hours per month are designed to disqualify beneficiaries of SNAP and Medicaid. Bureaucratic obstacles and “paper cuts” mandating more onerous application, renewal, and multiple recertification requirements are expected to eliminate even more. Lawsuits were threatened and filed. Politicians have promised to seek change if elected. States with reduced administrative staff are pleading helplessness.
For all the progressive sound and fury, it is hard not to feel impotence in the face of this tragedy to so many people. We think there’s a way to fight back from the bottom–with recipients through direct organization and action, while helping them meet the new requirements imposed by the Trump administration.
Bottom of Form
Work Requirements
The push for more Medicaid and SNAP “work requirements” has been happening state-by-state for decades. Trump’s bill dramatically expanded these requirements to include recipients over age 55, parents of children over 14, the medically frail, veterans, and young adults aging out of foster care. In the 41 states expanding Medicaid, work requirements will be imposed on many expansion recipients over the age of 19.
The work requirements can be met by punching in at McDonalds or the like, but can also be met pursuing qualified education and training programs, and, even more significantly, through volunteer community service work. The current requirements are highly general and, in most cases, self-certified. Churches qualify. Nonprofits of all sizes and descriptions qualify. In most of the states researched, ultimate discretion is given to case workers. Most of the time, there is no requirement that a recipient clear their volunteer placement in advance: even in Mississippi, the requirement is that a recipient timely submit proof that they worked their volunteer hours after they have done so.
This presents an opportunity.
BRAVO
At ACORN, we believe the Trump administration was able to implement this devastating war against the poor partially because rightly-entitled beneficiary recipients were not organized and able to take action to oppose these oppressive cuts to their benefits. We blame no one except the government that implemented these cuts, but without the voice and action of recipients themselves, the voices decrying these outrages were simply lost in the wilderness.
Talk is cheap, and action is hard, but in response to this crisis, we have begun organizing BRAVO, the Benefit Recipients Access and Volunteer Organization. We started in Cleveland, working through the newly launched ACORN Cleveland; Baltimore, working through our ACORN affiliate, Progressive Maryland; and New Orleans, working through A Community Voice, an ACORN affiliate.We have organizers in place in Little Rock and Philadelphia with plans to soon add Houston and Tucson, where we have partners.
Our organizing plan within the constituency is two-fold.
- Organize a pipeline of recipients who need qualifying volunteer work requirement hours through a coalition of agencies and nonprofits who have work the recipients can do and will verify the hours so that recipients can continue to qualify for benefits.
- Organize BRAVO volunteers directly, who are fulfilling their work requirement hours, to serve as organizers and advocates to do outreach to other eligible recipients, assist in enrollment and/or appeals to obtain and maintain benefits, and do the work of organizing such beneficiaries into BRAVO local and area groups to allow recipients to educate, advocate, and determine appropriate outreach and actions to build a base for continued, restored, and expanded benefits.
Part II will run tomorrow. You take it from here to there!