CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM/HEALTH EQUITY
The American Families Plan Restores SNAP Eligibility for People with Drug Felony Convictions.
The American Families Plan restores eligibility as part of “an investment in our kids, our families, and our economic future.”
SNAP and TANF restrictions provide a useful window into the insidious and spiteful nature of some collateral consequences of criminal convictions. US Commission on Civil Rights.
The COVID-19 pandemic and related health, social, and economic challenges have contributed to an overall increase in food insecurity. The public health and social safety nets — which were withering prior to the pandemic — are stretched increasingly thin. The surge in food insecurity amidst the pandemic is estimated to be more than double to triple pre-COVID, when 11.1% of households (14.3 million households) were food insecure in 2018.
Data from the US Census Bureau’s 2020 COVID‐19 Household Pulse Survey from April 23 to June 30, 2020, reported that over 25% of respondents experienced food insecurity, with differences based upon racial and ethnic groups: 34.8% of Black respondents, 33.3% of Latinx respondents, 22.2% of Asian respondents reported experiencing food insecurity compared with 21.2% of White respondents. COVID-19 has exposed widening social safety net gaps and exacerbated needs among those most vulnerable.
Nationwide, an increasing number of households rely on food banks, with lines stretching for miles, to meet their nutritional needs. Additionally, constraints within our food system have led to shortages at grocery stores, wasting of fresh foods, due to restaurant and school closures, and rising food prices. Decreases in production and higher food prices are associated with increased levels of food insecurity, particularly for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit recipients.
People with limited means benefit from safety net programs such as SNAP, designed to protect families from hardship and hunger. The federal government primarily funds the SNAP program, while states contribute to the administrative costs and program administration. SNAP benefits not only support low-income households, but also expediently inject monetary resources into the economy as an effective form of economic stimulus.Women and children constitute the majority of SNAP benefit recipients. On average, SNAP benefits provide $1.40 per person per meal.
The Biden Administration introduced The American Families Plan on April 28, 2021 as “an investment in our kids, our families, and our economic future.” Child care, paid leave, and nutrition are critical areas of the plan’s direct support to families and children. Facilitating reentry for formerly incarcerated individuals through SNAP eligibility is one such initiative included in the nutrition proposals. Previously, The Families First Coronavirus Response Act provided emergency SNAP benefits as part of increasing food assistance for struggling families, managing rising administrative demands, and maintaining much‐needed benefits during the pandemic.
For instance, the Act enables states to verify eligibility and administer SNAP benefits without in‐person interviews in light of safety and health concerns and social distancing. States have recently leveraged The Families First Coronavirus Response Act’s flexibility to increase food assistance amidst the pandemic. Several states have removed benefit bans for those with previous felony convictions in recent years and are taking advantage of recent federal legislation to do more, alongside a federal government that is revisiting these punitive policies.
Ingenuity is imperative during emergencies, such as economic depression and a pandemic, which renders millions vulnerable and deprives the economy of necessary stimulus. Such innovation and flexibility should also be seriously considered beyond the scope of these major events and in light of the increased need of individuals and populations. Ultimately, offering supports for economic stability further upstream will reduce long‐term and exorbitant burdens on the health and social safety net.
Access to nutritious, healthy food is a serious concern for people recently released from prison or jail or under community supervision. One study determined that 91% of formerly incarcerated individuals experience food insecurity during reentry. Given the high rates of comorbid chronic conditions and malnutrition among incarcerated populations, good nutrition is critical for the short‐ and long‐term health and well‐being of people reentering society. Ultimately, several studies have found that SNAP lifetime bans are associated with increased risks of recidivism, food insecurity, and poor mental and physical health outcomes.
SNAP Benefit Bans Affecting People with Drug Felony Convictions
The detrimental effects of denying SNAP benefits to individuals with drug felony convictions and the increased risks of food insecurity are especially heightened due to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Two SNAP policies contribute to collateral consequences for people with a criminal conviction: the SNAP ban and work requirements. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 established a ban on states providing SNAP and TANF benefits to anyone with felony convictions related to “fleeing” felons avoiding retribution from committing a felony or violating the terms of their probation or parole; those who have committed welfare fraud by applying for benefits in multiple states; and those convicted of felonies for possession, use, or distribution of illegal drugs.
PRWORA introduced block grants, more administrative control for states, time-limited benefits, and eligibility limitations for adults without independents and legal noncitizen residents as part of welfare reform. Food stamps were previously linked to other welfare benefits but since welfare reform and the establishment of Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT), separate applications are necessary. Pam Herd and Don Moynihan offer that such administrative burdens contributed to a decrease of more than 20% in eligible beneficiaries receiving SNAP benefits. PRWORA and related collateral consequences embody the era’s tough on crime and welfare reform ethos and welfare retrenchment alongside increases in incarceration.
Such collateral consequences of punishment, which impose burdens and barriers in the form of public benefit bans and restrictions based on a criminal conviction, compromise the health, well‐being, and safety of individuals and their communities. David Kirk and Sara Wakefield define collateral consequences as: “formal legal and regulatory sanctions that the convicted bear beyond the sentence imposed by a criminal court; and the informal impacts of criminal legal system contact on families, communities, and democracy.”
Black people have been incarcerated at rates five to seven times higher than Whites and face disproportionately punitive sentencing and collateral consequences. US policies limiting state support for federal nutrition assistance for those with criminal convictions also adversely impact women, who are overwhelmingly single parents and sentenced for non-violent offenses.
Some states recognize these policy relics of the War on Drugs have deleterious impacts, such as recidivism, food insecurity, and poor mental and physical health outcomes. In turn, several states have either overturned or modified these bans. South Carolina is the only remaining state, along with the territory of Guam, to impose a lifetime ban on SNAP benefits for those convicted of drug‐related felonies. Twenty-two states and Washington, DC have completely opted out of the ban, whereas 27 states have modified the ban so that qualifying people with drug felony convictions are still eligible to receive SNAP benefits. Michigan, along with four other states, permanently deny anyone with two or more felony drug convictions SNAP benefits. In 2018, Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania signed a bill banning those with felony drug convictions from receiving public benefits for ten years.
A federal judge vacated the Trump administration’s 2019 proposed work requirement rule change, which would have made it more difficult for states to waive a work requirement. Federal law allows states to exempt some individuals from the work requirements and suspend the three‐month limit, but states must proactively do so by drafting and submitting a waiver.
Time limits and work requirements associated with SNAP eligibility are especially punitive for informally and underemployed people as well as those with prior convictions, all of which are especially vulnerable to food insecurity. Notably, states may not provide individuals with work or training program opportunities and stop benefits regardless of how diligently individuals are looking for work.
The American Families Plan and Restoring SNAP Eligibility
The Biden Administration introduced The American Families Plan on April 28, 2021 as “an investment in our kids, our families, and our economic future.” Providing direct support to families and children constitutes a key area of the plan, which includes child care, paid leave, and nutrition. Facilitating reentry for formerly incarcerated individuals through SNAP eligibility is one such initiative included in the nutrition proposals.
Democratic Reps. Steve Cohen (TN), Jahana Hayes (CT), Gwen Moore (WI), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ) introduced the Making Essentials Affordable and Lawful (MEAL) Act to Congress on April 26, 2021, which would end lifetime prohibition on people with drug felony convictions from receiving SNAP and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits. An open letter of support for the MEAL Act signed by over 160 organizations was sent to US lawmakers earlier that week. At the state-level, HB 497 has been introduced in Kentucky, which eliminates a lifetime ban on access to SNAP food assistance and other low-income assistance for people with a drug-related felony conviction.
The Biden Administration’s American Families Plan’s policy proposal seeking to undo SNAP restrictions is a welcome change in response to the 1996 ban on people with felony drug convictions from receiving food stamps or SNAP benefits. The US Commission on Civil Rights has recommended eliminating SNAP benefit restrictions based on criminal convictions, which fail to prevent recidivism, promote public safety, or relate to underlying crimes.
Policy improvements, administrative flexibility, and cross‐sector collaboration can facilitate SNAP benefit access, plus safer, healthier transitioning from jail or prison to the community. The American Families Plan’s commitment to ameliorating SNAP bans for those with criminal legal system involvement coincides with recent reform efforts and dovetails well with COVID related policy responses to strengthen the US safety net for all.
Remaining SNAP bans and restrictions, which do not enhance public safety or rationally relate to original offenses, impede people with criminal convictions from safely and successfully reentering society. Strengthening the social safety net and eliminating benefit restrictions affecting individuals with criminal convictions aligns with recognizing the right to food as binding international law in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The COVID‐19 pandemic has opened the Overton Window in framing social safety net reforms as acceptable policy positions across the criminal legal system. Policy improvements, non-discrimination, and cross‐sector collaboration are critical to ensure expedient access to SNAP benefits and to best support healthier, safer transitions from jail or prison to the community upon release. The Biden Administration’s Plan to facilitate reentry for formerly incarcerated individuals through SNAP eligibility is a necessary step towards strengthening the social safety net for people involved with the criminal legal system as part of improving health as well as economic outcomes, particularly for those most marginalized.
Cynthia A. Golembeski, MPH, is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar and a doctoral candidate at The New School and a JD candidate at Rutgers University. She uses mixed methods to research how policy, law, management, and citizen‐state relations operate at the intersection of criminal legal and health systems. She teaches with the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons Consortium and Princeton University.
Related article: Golembeski, Cynthia, Ans Irfan and Kimberly Dong. Food Insecurity and Collateral Consequences of Punishment Amidst the COVID‐19 Pandemic. World Medical & Health Policy, 12: 357–373.
