The SNAP Work Requirements That Don’t Actually Increase Employment — New Research Makes the Case Conclusively

That morning, there was a lengthier line than normal outside the House of Hope mobile pantry in Delbarton, West Virginia. The food was running late because a truck tire had blown somewhere on the mountain road. No one gave a honk.

No one departed. By the time the crates were finally released, six automobiles had been waiting for over four hours, while about seventy more idled in the gentle March sun behind them. Hunger teaches a certain kind of patience, as evidenced by the way individuals turned off their motors to conserve petrol.

While his wife Lilly volunteered with the distribution team, Perry Hall was seated in the passenger seat somewhere in that line. Perry suffers from multiple myeloma. The pair receives about $1,500 each month from Social Security, which is augmented by SNAP. Lilly, who is 59 years old, was recently subject to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s increased employment requirements. In the hopes that a waitress position would become available before the restrictions caught up to her, she found unpaid restaurant work in town. It keeps her advantages intact. By no means does it protect her dignity.

The peculiar thing is that regulations like the one constricting Lilly Hall don’t really accomplish what their architects claim, and this is what the latest research from The Hamilton Project keeps returning to. After reviewing the literature, the researchers came to the conclusion that work requirements do not, in and of themselves, promote employment among those who are subject to them.

They consistently reduce the size of the program. People tumble from the rolls. There is no change in the unemployment rate. Lawmakers may already be aware of this. They might not, too.

The evidence has changed her own perspective, according to Lauren Bauer, who oversaw most of the study. She had thought that SNAP could encourage people to find work. She now views the program as an anti-hunger tool that has been subtly forced into a workforce-development role for which it was never intended. Apprenticeships, career ladders, and job training are all available elsewhere. Pretending that a food benefit can take their place only results in what she called a “dissonant interaction with the government: I need food, but I lost my job.” Well, having a job is the only way to eat.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that since the law was signed, about 2.5 million Americans have already lost their SNAP payments. It’s more difficult to determine how much of that decline is directly related to the new law because enrollment naturally fluctuates with the state of the economy. However, the program is undergoing simultaneous changes, including the elimination of funds for nutrition education, the elimination of eligibility for refugees and asylees, the removal of area-based work waivers, and the requirement that states bear a greater portion of the expense. This week’s declining rolls were praised by a USDA official, who described them as a return to helping the most vulnerable.

This has been researched in her home state by Rhonda Rogombé, an analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. Employment in Mingo County declined rather than increased following the end of the pandemic-era pause in 2023. Her argument is nearly self-evident: hungry people find it difficult to concentrate, to apply, and to consistently show up. Observing all of this gives the impression that legislators have created a system that penalizes the very issue they purport to address. When the milk ran out, the Delbarton line was still in motion.