State agencies and the Agriculture Department face a perfect storm of legislative and regulatory demands as they turn the new food stamp work requirements in the debt ceiling law into reality.
Matt Lyons, senior director of policy and practice for the American Public Human Services Association, said his members will be scrambling to be ready within the 90-day window the law sets for implementing expanded work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents — ABAWDs — and time limits on food aid.
His members, who manage the food stamp program and other social services, also have to identify the veterans, homeless and those aging out of foster care at age 18, the three categories for exemptions allowed by the new law. And with the ending of the public health emergency last month, they will again start enforcing requirements for ABAWDs that were suspended because of the pandemic.
