Washington D.C., Dec 6, 2019 / 02:05 pm (CNA).- A new rule that will disqualify roughly 700,000 people from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly called food stamps, will not help people find or keep employment, leaders of Catholic charitable and social policy organizations told CNA.
“Just because suddenly they’re not eligible for SNAP doesn’t mean they don’t need SNAP. It doesn’t mean they don’t need nutrition assistance,” Julie Bodnar, a policy advisor for the department of Domestic Social Development at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told CNA.
“So they’re going to turn elsewhere and the Church is going to strive to meet those needs, but it’s hard. There’s no increased resources on our end, so I think people will do their best, but it’s going to be a struggle to try to respond to that increased need,” Bodnar added.
On Dec. 4, the Trump administration officially announced a change in SNAP eligibility rules that will apply to single adults between the ages of 18-49 who do not have children and are not disabled. Such adults qualify for food stamps if they work at least 20 hours a week for more than three months within a three-year period. However, states have until now been allowed to grant waivers for the work requirement in areas with high rates of unemployment.
The new rule tightens restrictions on these waivers, only allowing them in areas where the unemployment rate is 20% above the national average unemployment rate, and at least 6% over a two-year period. The national unemployment rate in October was 3.6%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This new rule would disqualify 688,000 people from food stamps when it takes effect in April 2020, the USDA told NBC News. It is the first of three new rules being considered by the USDA. If the other two measures pass, millions of people could lose their eligibility for food stamps.
Brian Corbin is the Executive Vice President of Member Services at Catholic Charities USA. Corbin told CNA that the new restrictions violate a principle of Catholic social teaching, which is that “food is a basic right, a basic human right to help fulfill our dignity and flourishing,” he said. “We have to remember that we’re dealing now with people and food and food security.”
Corbin said that many of those who lose their eligibility for food stamps will likely come to Catholic Charities branches throughout the U.S. for help.
He added that most people overestimate the amount of financial assistance food stamp recipients actually get.
“We’re talking about $167 is the average monthly voucher for SNAP,” he said. According to the USDA, the intention of the new restriction on food stamps is to be fair to taxpayers, and to incentivize able-bodied people to return to work. “We’re taking action to reform our SNAP program in order to restore the dignity of work to a sizable segment of our population and be respectful of the taxpayers who fund the program,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told NBC News.
“Americans are generous people who believe it is their responsibility to help their fellow citizens when they encounter a difficult stretch. That’s the commitment behind SNAP, but, like other welfare programs, it was never intended to be a way of life.”
Bodnar said her department welcomes and supports efforts to expand SNAP education and job training programs, rather than measures that disqualify people from food assistance.
“It just doesn’t help meet that goal (of people returning to work) in any concrete way. It’s only a punitive measure.”
Corbin said that while the idea to incentivize people to return to work is good in theory, in practice it will take food away from people who were laid off their jobs or who are living in states experiencing recession.
“First, these are people that are probably struggling because they were laid off or that jobs are not available in certain parts of the country,” Corbin said. “And second, recessions come and go, so this really prevents states from (having) the ability to act appropriately, to respond to the recession.” “And third, a lot of states are not mandated to have employment training programs,” Corbin added, making jobs even more out of reach for people in already high unemployment areas.
Monsignor John Enzler, President and CEO of Catholic Charities in Washington, D.C. said he has personally witnessed the hunger of low-income people and was worried the new SNAP restrictions would let more people go hungry.
“My experience is an awful lot of people out there…really are in desperate situations, not of their own wishes or desire, and they need assistance to get themselves out of that situation,” Enzler told CNA.
According to a recent press release from Catholic Charities D.C., the District of Columbia has a food insecurity rate of 14.5% due to food deserts and families living below the poverty line. This means more than 82,000 are food insecure, including 31,000 children.
Enzler said when he was a pastor in a local parish he personally knew of some low-income people who resorted to eating dog food when they couldn’t afford to feed themselves. He has also known of grandmothers who go without food so that they can feed their own grandchildren.
“These are real, honest situations going on,” Enzler said. “That should shock the jeepers out of all of ourselves. The nation’s capital? The capital of the Free World? What are you talking about? Well, it’s true. It’s real.”
Citing chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew, the monsignor added that Jesus taught his disciples to care for the poor, the hungry and the thirsty in their midst.
“He actually says on judgment day…we’ll be judged on whether we met Jesus in those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, in prison, or ill,” he said. “This is part of the Gospel. This is part of our call to take care of people. And we do the best we can.”
Catholic Charities in D.C. already operates several programs that serve meals to homeless or low-income people along with other forms of assistance. They are currently in the midst of their third annual Virtual Food Drive, through which people can make online donations that will benefit a local food bank and several other food assistance programs that partner with Catholic Charities.
One of those programs is St. Maria’s Meals, a food truck and bike delivery program that provides warm meals to 300 people in need on a weekly basis. The name comes from the wife of St. Isidore, the patron saint of farmers. Enzler said that according to the story of St. Isidore, he would send poor people home to his wife, Maria, and she would feed whoever showed up.
“The legend is that the food never ran out. So basically she and Isidore just took care of people. That’s the Gospel, basically, taking care of people. That’s why it’s Maria’s, because we say our food will not run out. You come to us, we’ll take care of you.”
Last year, Catholic Charities D.C. provided more than 2.5 million meals to people in need and distributed more than 1 million pounds of food to local pantries. They also served 28,000 people through St. Maria’s Meals and more than 32,000 people through a program that provides grocery assistance to recently released prisoners.
Enzler encouraged Catholic leaders to preach out the call to help the poor, and he encouraged Catholics to pray for those in need and to contact their representatives to voice their concerns about the SNAP restrictions.
“With a program like SNAP, basically what the government says is that we’ll help the situation. Without it, it’s going to be more on us,” Enzler said.
“We’ll keep doing the best we can, but our resources are limited. We don’t have anywhere near that amount of money that the government has to do the things we’re called to do. So obviously, we find ourselves limited in our response,” he added.
“What’s the bottom line? People are starving. That’s the bottom line.”
[…]
No Catholic in good standing can vote for any candidate who campaigns for the killing of unborn defenseless children.
Nor for a grossly immoral candidate who flaunts our constitutional form of government and has even waffled on pro life issues. A man who is dangerous and can’t be trusted. Friends we are in serious trouble!
It is sad and funny that Catholics criticize Trump on moral grounds. The most disgusting immoral President was the JFK and Biden is nor far behind in his lack of morals. JFK almost got us into WW3 and Biden has started 2 wars so far.
History credits JFK with getting us out of the cuban missile crisis with back door diplomacy through the work of Bobby Kennedy allowing Khrushchev to save face. I am no fan of the Kennedy family but this is a fact that we can’t ignore.
O my goodness, and how the bishops pandered to Hispanics by trashing Trump, having Mass at the wall with the press in tow, cozying up to Biden … only to find out Hispanics are as smart as most other Americans. Now, bishops, you’re out there on a limb. Hope you don’t land too hard and trash your miters. That’s right, you’ve squandered your teaching authority once again. And you wonder why regular Catholics no longer pay you any mind? And you’re going to find out soon enough the pay off for jumping on the BLM/George Floyd bandwagon last election cycle. You have it coming.
jpfhays, you put it so succinctly and accurately. Most of our bishops are feckless sycophants – followers of that Great Accommodationist, Francis I.
I’m guessing the US bishops are already aware of this but more & more Hispanics are Evangelical & Pentecostal & those are socially conservative folk.
Biden is a “Catholic president”?
Well then…
Hitler’s family was Catholic. So I guess that means Hitler was a Catholic fürher, eh?
I know, I know. It’s disrespectful — and not accurate — to compare Biden to Hitler.
You’re right. I’m sorry.
After all, Germany only murdered three or four dozens of millions of people during Hitler’s rule.
While Biden’s holocaust numbers in the many hundreds of millions around the world during his half century in office.
Recently, I heard a statement I found interesting: Democrats have not carried a majority of male voters (all males – white, black, Hispanic) since LBJ in 1964. My very limited research tends to support this as accurate. I’m willing to be corrected by the really smart CWR readers.
No REAL Catholic would choose to vote in the ’24 election.
Any Catholic who decides to vote this year is announcing to the world that their faith means less than nothing to them and politics are more important than Jesus. 😡
This message was brought to you by the Biden/Harris Campaign Committee.
🙂
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do NOTHING.” If you fail to vote, you effectively join the crowd with blood on their hands.
Its like voting for a third party candidate who you know CANNOT win as away of virtue signaling. It steal votes from the better candidate, and effectively allows the side that lies and cheats to win.
Some choice. Most Americans do not want this choice, but here we are. Again and again, we are faced with the “lesser of two evils.”
the last person i want in the white house is that no good loser trump
hmmm…so i guess its ok for trump to fool around with porn stars and support abortion???
you people drive me crazy. trump belongs in prison, not the white house!
So, I guess it’s ok for Bill Clinton to harass multiple women and for Hillary to help him cover that up? I guess it’s ok for Andrew Cuomo to harass 14 women and counting? I guess it’s ok for Barack Obama to sow racial divisions in the country and support partial birth abortions? Is voting for a democrat really any type of morally sound alternative when you look at the facts?
Ideally, I prefer my politicians without porn stars. But I have yet to meet a person who is perfect and without weakness. In the final analysis, I am MORE concerned about how their POLICIES affect our country and our people. We are voting for a President, not a saint. Only the dimmest cant see that stirring up accusations about a persons sexual activity is simply a way to damage them politically. I would not vote for a political party like that with a gun to my head.
Answer honestly. What does more damage to more people? An open border, a refusal to enforce criminal laws, and a two tiered justice system, or a politician dating a porn star?
I prefer my presidents without porn stars too, LJ.
😁
But we take what we can get and there are only two viable options at the moment. One’s associated with porn stars, the other with cognitive decline.
Not that very long ago, Democratic elected officials like Joseph Biden DID vote for pro-life bills, and the Democratic Party was considered “the party of the little man (and what is littler than an embryo or fetus?!). But now the few pro-life Democrats who are strong enough in their soul to remain prolife, e.g., Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, are basically hounded and hated out of office. The problem is that the basic concept of the “Republican” party is individual freedom–which means that there will still be plenty of pro-choice” Republicans. The only hope is to pray for more private citizens to recognize the scientific and spiritual reasons to be “pro-life” and demand that their elected officials of ANY political party support the right of the unborn to live! Voting Republican is no guarantee that pro-life laws will be passed and upheld. I do plan to vote for Pres. Trump at this time (not only because of pro-life issues but because he has a better grasp of what is necessary for a strong economy, and he is respected (or perhaps feared?!) by other world leaders. However, we still have a few more months for God to work a miracle!
Alex, for 500 points. Question: Who wrote the following:
“… it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life.”
Answer “Who is Ted Kennedy” (1971)
Hard to believe but true: https://www.ncregister.com/blog/the-story-behind-kennedy-s-pro-life-letter
Thank you for sharing that article, Ron.
What a sad example of how we betray our faith for worldly success. I’d say betrayal of our convictions also, but that assumes a sincere conviction in the first place.
For every Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden there’s a lifetime of Catholic clergy who have enabled them to get to that place of moral error. At Judgement the shepherds will be held to a higher accountability than the sheep.
Happy Mothers (Mary and own mother) Month . Catholics who vote for Trump did not comprehend, imbibe and get well the Catholic values taught by their mothers. How could one vote for a narcissist, liar, cheat, misogynist, sexist, racist, rapist, insurrectionist, criminal defendant, who has no God but himself.
My mother had commonsense Deacon Dom & she taught me to make practical choices.
Based upon the performance of either candidate while they were in office, I’m choosing Trump. I base my vote on previous performance , not campaign hype.
Well, you supported the Clinton’s and B. Hussein Obama. What does that say about your own faith and values?
You are basing a lot of your accusations of Pres. Trump on a corrupt and ultra-liberal media’s slant. These folks lie through their teeth. I’m sure some of it is true, but…if you want an indication of how Pres. Trump lives in his private life, just take a look at his children, including his youngest son, Barron. These kids are amazing–they started working in their dad’s company when they were 16 and were required to work at every “job” to be able to understand what the employees do. After Pres. Trump was elected, Barron came under an attack by the “media”_-and Melania (his mom) promptly left the White House with her son and took him to a private place in NYC where the media couldn’t get at him. Pres. Trump had no objection. I would suggest that you read VP Mike Pence’s biography in which he discusses Pres. Trump in detail and for the most part, until the Jan. 6 debacle, is quite complimentary about Pres. Trump. Pence has been a devout Christian from his childhood–he grew up Catholic and converted to Evangelical Protestantism later in life–so he’s not one to stretch the truth or tell lies. And be wary about believing the media. One “story” about Pres. Trump that they haven’t reported is all the “small charities” that he has funded, including an amazing organization in NYC called Figure Skating In Harlem. In the beginning, the coach spent all her own money funding this excellent organization, which has a 99.9% high school graduation rate among the mainly minority girls who are members. Donald Trump heard about the organization (he was involved with re-building a NYC figure skating rink) and stepped in with a large donation. I don’t know if he is still involved, but at this point, Figure Skating in Harlem is supported by many A-list celebrities who also serve on the board (e.g., Al Roker). But it was Donald Trump who kept it alive in the beginning. You’ve never heard that, have you? Maybe Pres. Trump isn’t as bad as you think.
“criminal defendant”
I’m going to ignore the rest of what you spewed and focus on this.
You do dealize that being a defendant in a criminal case doesn’t mean that a person is a criminal, right? There’s a little thing called “presumption of innocence.”
And even in the cases of people convicted, there are also some who are wrongly convicted, and prosecutors who abuse the law to promote their own political agendas.
Happy Mother’s Day/Month. Those Catholics who vote for Trump must have failed to comprehend or imbibe the Catholic values taught by their mothers. How could they vote for a narcissist, liar, cheat, misogynist, racist, rapist, insurrectionist, criminal defendant, and who has no God but himself.
Most German voters in the early 1930’s didn’t think the Nazis were serious about all that extremist stuff, either. History has a way of repeating itself.
It seems to be doing that on our college campuses today, Marlene. Plus ca change…
To Deacon Dom, and some others in this comment section – even if she were alive, we are never going to have a Mother Theresa running for president. Trump gave us Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe and sent it back to the states. All of the national and state pro-life groups that I saw praised this at the time. So, going back to the states wasn’t as good as many of us hoped. Hardly Trump’s fault.
Given the choices that we have, I don’t see how anyone cannot see the difference between Trump and Biden, who is not only for abortion but wants to increase it with a national pro-abortion law. Biden, and his campaign manager have said that their key campaign issue is going to be a stand as the pro-abortion candidate.
If Trump does win, I believe that we will then be hearing from the bishops, calling out Trump by name, for trying to close the border to illegals.
The democrat party is the pro death party as evidenced by their platform which calls for the killing of unborn babies anytime, anyplace, for any reason, paid for by the government.
I get the impression that so many Catholics are so tied to the democrat party that they refuse to see moral realty, and that goes also for bishops, half of whom in my state are registered members of the party of death.
Bravo, Crusader!
The Democratic Party is indeed a death cult. They are in favor of:
Abortion, to the tune of a third of the children conceived in America for the past half century; open borders, over which deadly drugs are allowed to pour in unimpeded; the mutilation and sterilization of “trans” children without the consent of the parents; drug legalization; foreign aid for the nation that is the biggest supporter of terrorism in the world; some ten million illegal aliens, totally unvetted, being allowed into the country and receiving welfare and services while U.S. families struggle to survive; euthanasia — and so much more.
Catholics who vote for Democrats should look to their souls.
A Catholic would make a big mistake voting for the figre head in the White House or not voting at all. That Catholic would be contributing to the victory of a clear pro abortion candidate and party (I leave out the many other anti Christian and anti national positions they hold). With all his folds, DT is on our side; the other is not. DT has appointed more pro life judges than any president. He is pro life. The other is not. DT tries to save as many children as possible with his leaving abortion to the states, not the Feds. The other wants the Feds to control and push abortion. DT is against all the anti children policies the other holds from transgender to lgbtq plus, etc. Catholics, this is a no brainer decision. And by the way, with all his faults, see what a good bunch of boys DT has raised, who love his father. Compare with the present figure head and his children, one of whom he used to take showers with when she was a girl, as she has recollected in her diary, found in a house for drug addicts (she has drug and sexual promiscuity problems). Once more, folks, this is a no brainer at election time. Go and vote for the much better candidate.