The Trump administration is changing the requirements of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), impacting 688,000 people previously eligible to receive food stamps. Food writer Corby Kummer joined Boston Public Radio on Thursday to discuss this new rule and its consequences.
"They will now require able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 49 with no dependents — 7 percent of SNAP recipients — to essentially work 20 hours a week, or they can't get SNAP benefits after three months," Kummer said. "On Wednesday, the Trump administration finalized the rule, and what they aim to do is just throw people off the rolls and make them hungry."
Kummer said that the new 20 hour working week requirement doesn't take into consideration the hardship that stands in the way of people getting work.
"It's one of the worst outrages this administration has foisted on us in a long time, because there's very high unemployment, it's hard to get jobs for these people, it's even harder to check out and verify 20 hours."
Kummer is a senior editor at The Atlantic, an award-winning food writer, and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition and Policy.
