Thousands of Young People Are About to Lose Their Food Stamp Benefits [View all]

[LiberalArkie]

Two years ago, Barack Obama signed the latest "Farm Bill," a piece of legislation that is generally renewed every five years and funds a bevy of food- and agriculture-related government programs. The 2014 version was subject to a brutal legislative fight, and in the end, conservatives in Congress were able to get $8.7 billion in cuts to food stamps written into it.

Now some of the consequences of those cuts are coming into effect: By some estimates, upward of a million Americans between the ages of 18 and 49 are set to lose their food stamps in 2016.

The people who are bearing the brunt of the budget cuts are known as ABAWDs: able-bodied adults without dependents. If you're young, childless, and rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—more commonly known as food stamps—you're probably an ABAWD.

The category was created in 1996; the idea is that young people who don't have to worry about children or disabilities shouldn't need government assistance to survive. Generally, these Americans aren't allowed to be on SNAP for more than three months in three years, but when the economy collapsed in 2008, this restriction fell by the wayside. But now that the economy is doing better by some metrics (even if more Americans are living in poverty now than in 2008), the government evidently thinks that these individuals should be working 20 hours a week, and if they're not, they need to be trying harder to find a job.

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http://www.vice.com/read/thousands-of-young-people-are-about-to-lose-their-food-stamp-benefits