{"id":171994,"date":"2025-07-26T11:06:59","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T15:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=171994"},"modified":"2025-07-26T11:06:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T15:06:59","slug":"big-beautiful-bill-encourages-self-sufficiency-and-reduces-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=171994","title":{"rendered":"Big Beautiful Bill encourages self-sufficiency and reduces fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

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One part of the Big Beautiful Bill is the change made to work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Nearly one eighth of the U.S. population benefits from SNAP, and many of these beneficiaries are abled bodied and capable of working. Despite this reality, many able-bodied beneficiaries are not working in conjunction with receiving benefits. The new changes increased the age range for the work requirement and required many to work, do job training, or do community service as part of receiving SNAP.<\/p>\n

From The Daily Signal:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

COVID-19’s SNAP benefit increases were supposed to be temporary. But the Biden administration cemented the boosts via executive overreach. The massive 23% benefit increase was the biggest one-time benefit rise in the program’s history.<\/p>\n

Congress’ recent reforms to SNAP in the bill strengthen work requirements for able-bodied adults, make clear that benefit increases must be tied to inflation, hold states more accountable for improper payments, and tighten a longtime loophole that allows households to artificially boost their SNAP benefits.<\/p>\n

Let’s look more closely at how Congress reformed SNAP.<\/p>\n

First, helping able-bodied Americans on welfare get back to work should be a primary goal of the U.S. welfare system. Yet work requirements are scarce in the system. Only able-bodied adults on SNAP ages 18 to 54 without children have been subject to any work requirement. (Only recently was the age limit pushed to age 54 from 49.)<\/p>\n

With the recent reforms, work requirements will now apply to able-bodied adults without children up to the age of 64 as well as to able-bodied parents whose children are 14 and older. The work requirements can be fulfilled by part-time employment (20 hours a week), job training, or community service.<\/p>\n

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act also seeks to reduce fraud by making states more accountable for improper SNAP payments. Currently, nearly all SNAP funding comes from the federal government, meaning states have little incentive to see that SNAP funding is spent properly. Now, states will be required to contribute some of their own funding to SNAP (up to 15%) depending on the state’s payment error rate (the share of SNAP payments made incorrectly).<\/p>\n

Congress also tightened SNAP’s “Heat & Eat” loophole. This convoluted loophole allows some households to artificially increase the amount of their utility bill they can claim on their SNAP application. Households can then deduct an artificially boosted utility payment from their income and thereby qualify for a higher SNAP benefit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Additional Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sheffield, R. (2025, July 25). Food stamp reforms in One Big Beautiful Bill Act promote upward mobility. The Daily Signal<\/em>. Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One part of the Big Beautiful Bill is the change made to work requirements for the … Big Beautiful Bill encourages self-sufficiency and reduces fraud<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[694,654,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","category-op-ed","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=171994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=171994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=171994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=171994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}