The Presidential Administration’s proposal would take food away from 755,000 people, including 90,000 Pennsylvanians.
The Presidential Administration’s proposed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) rule would time limit food benefits for unemployed and underemployed people who can’t document sufficient weekly work hours. They would lose SNAP eligibility after three months. Submit a comment expressing strong opposition to the proposed rule during the 60-day public comment period that ends on April 2, 2019.
Since 1996, unemployed adults aged 18-50, who are not living with children, can only get SNAP for 3 months out of 36 months, unless they are working 20 hours a week, or exempt from the time limit because of disability or another reason. This is a very harsh rule: it means that even if you are trying to get a job but can’t find one, you may lose your SNAP after 3 months.
Most importantly, people who live in areas of high unemployment – like Philadelphia – have been exempt from this rule, if their Governor seeks a “waiver” of the rule for those areas of high unemployment. Since 1996, all the Governors of Pennsylvania – both Democrats and Republicans – have sought these waivers for Pennsylvania areas of high unemployment.
The proposed SNAP regulations would change what counts as an area of high unemployment, so very few areas could be excused from the time limit. 90,000 Pennsylvanians are at risk of losing their SNAP because of this rule change!
Submit comments to say you oppose changing the definition of areas of high unemployment, to ensure that people struggling to find jobs, but who can’t find one, can still get food to eat through SNAP.
To submit a comment, and for samples, see: http://www.frac.org/timelimitcomments.
Be sure to modify the language in model comments so that at least one-third of it reflects your own thoughts and experiences. This will ensure that each submitted comment counts as a unique comment.