Policy & Practice | Fall 2023

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processing of grants and contract payments within agencies. Finally, agencies will also have to update their systems to account for the changes to the eligibility rules. Veterans’ status, unhoused indica tors, and former foster care criteria will become important in making sure that automated systems are correctly evaluating eligibility for ABAWDs and managing automated sanctions and disqualification criteria. Just as important are external-facing solutions, too—responsive websites, mobile applications, and AI chatbots that make outreach, communications, and the application process easier, faster, and more transparent for citizens who may be wary of needing to jump through more administrative hoops to qualify for SNAP. Their user experiences must be seamless and intu itive enough to keep people from falling through the cracks and missing out on benefits to which they are entitled. The New SNAP Landscape It’s a new day for SNAP, with thou sands of new recipients expected to enroll and thousands of others with new participation expectations for continued receipt of benefits. It’s imperative that agencies across the country leverage intuitive technology solutions to make this transition as smooth as possible, ensuring that new recipients are connected to the assis tance they need (and qualify for), while also working to help ABAWDs navigate new work requirements to ensure they don’t unexpectedly lose benefits. Reference Notes 1. https://www.cbpp.org/research/food assistance/debt-ceiling-agreements-snap changes-would-increase-hunger-and poverty-for#_ftn1 2. https://www.cbo.gov/system/ files/2023-05/hr3746_Letter_McCarthy.pdf 3. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/29/us/ politics/debt-limit-deal-food-stamps.html

the enrollment of tens of thousands of veterans, unhoused people, and former foster care youth who may have previ ously not been eligible. However, as the CBPP report notes, the effectiveness of these exemptions relies on “states properly identify[ing] that they meet these criteria”—making it all the more critical that the tech nology solutions that agencies are using can properly help recipients navigate enrollment hurdles and receive the assistance to which they are eligible. How Agencies Can Help ABAWDs Navigate New Work Requirements With these new changes poised to make an impact over the coming months, there will be greater demand placed on agency workers to help SNAP recipients understand the impact to their situations. Veterans, individuals experiencing homelessness, and former foster care young adults may require special outreach and commu nications to understand that they may now be eligible for SNAP, when they couldn’t attain eligibility previously. Current SNAP ABAWDs who are approaching age 50 or who are cur rently ages 50–54 may require special communications and outreach to under stand the demands being placed upon them by the increased participation rules. Those currently receiving benefits in this age group are at increased risk of ending up in sanctions, just because they missed a communication or didn’t understand that they were affected. Agencies may choose to create special business processes to alert both recipi ents and workers to engage more closely with each other, as deadlines for rede termination approach. The ABAWD changes will also place increased demand on agencies to assist this 50+ population in finding appropriate work or approved partici pation activities. Agencies may need to expand contracts with employment services vendors or employers who help engage ABAWDs in employment or work experience programs. This will also increase demands on the financial

Until recently, that was the land scape for SNAP work requirements. Now let’s dig into the impact that this new legislation will have on SNAP ben eficiaries starting this fall.

New Impacts to ABAWDs Ages 50–54

Under the new law, the ABAWD age cap will be incrementally expanded to age 55 by 2025 (age 51 in FY 2023, 53 in FY 2024, and 55 in FY 2025). The legislation also introduces addi tional exemptions from ABAWD work requirements for unhoused individuals, veterans, and those under age 25 who have aged out of foster care. Despite these exemptions, an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities 1 (CBPP) from May 2023 estimates that when the new work requirement provi sion goes into full effect by 2025, nearly 750,000 ABAWDs between the ages of 50 and 54 who are currently on SNAP will be impacted. The new exemptions would now allow those veterans, individuals expe riencing homelessness, and former foster care youth ages 18–49, who pre viously were disqualified because they weren’t meeting the ABAWD require ments, to qualify for SNAP as they will only have to meet the lesser general work requirements. Although these new exemptions do not affect the majority of the 50–54-year old ABAWDs on SNAP, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s review of the bill 2 found that “approximately 78,000 people would gain benefits in an average month, on net.” As The New York Times reports, 3 this is because, “adults subject to the work requirements were more likely to be unhoused than other SNAP beneficiaries. Waiving work requirements could also increase the number of veterans who use food stamps from the current level of 1.1 million.” Consequently, while there may be thousands of ABAWD recipients who lose SNAP benefits if they do not meet the higher participation requirements placed upon them, the overall total number of SNAP beneficiaries will increase over the next few years, with

Mary Alice Hunt is the Manager of Client Solutions Professionals at Cúram by Merative.

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