New work requirements add red tape to Missouri's atrophied food aid system

New work requirements add red tape to Missouri's atrophied food aid system

Distributing food stamps could soon become even more difficult for Missouri's food assistance system, which a federal judge has already called "broken and inaccessible."

States rely heavily on federal funding to operate their food stamp programs, which help feed about 42 million people nationwide. But a new federal law has restructured the country's food aid. It requires more people to work to qualify for aid and shifts more of the program's costs to states over the next decade. Meanwhile, many Americans are struggling to afford food, and state governments are scrambling to help.

More than a year ago, for example, a federal judge ruled that Missouri's food assistance system was "overwhelmed," wrongly denying applicants assistance and leaving many hungry as a "direct result of the system's inadequacy." Judge Douglas Harpool ordered the state to fix the problems.

Despite the court order, not much has changed, according to an analysis of state performance metrics by KFF Health News.

The ongoing problems in Missouri are a foretaste of the difficulties that lie ahead for federal food assistance programs across the country. Food aid advocates said Missouri is just one example of a nationwide problem where strained state systems are struggling to provide timely aid. For example, low-income people in Alaska faced chronic backlogs while the state tried for years to solve the problem.

Last year, then-U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sent letters to 44 governors calling for faster processing of applications and greater precision in determining benefits.

Adding to the administrative wrangling are concerns about funding during the recent federal government shutdown. The Trump administration refused to use emergency funds to keep the food assistance program running, and on November 1, as the shutdown entered its fifth week, food benefits for millions of people, including in Missouri, expired. Two federal judges ordered the Trump administration to provide emergency funds for the program.

The shutdown ended Nov. 12 and Missouri said its SNAP recipients began receiving their full benefits three days later. Meanwhile, as Thanksgiving approached, delays in benefits were still being reported in some states.

Even after the shutdown, states will have to do more with fewer resources. The Republicans' "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" cuts billions of dollars in federal funding for the food aid program and shifts more administrative and financial burdens to states.

The bill, signed by President Donald Trump in July, would allocate $187 billion over the next decade from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as food stamps, or SNAP. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this represents a 20% cut.

One of the most significant and immediate changes will require more people to work to be eligible for assistance. The change will cause at least 2.4 million Americans to lose aid, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The analysis assumes that many people will lose their benefits because work requirements make it difficult to apply.

Expanding work requirements will hurt some of the country's most vulnerable people, said Ed Bolen, who leads food aid strategies at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

But the conservative Foundation for Government Accountability, a group that has worked to promote similar policies in states, says the requirement is necessary to maintain aid for those "truly in need."

'Undisputed Varieties in Missouri

Some Missourians were already struggling before Trump signed the bill.

Kelly Thweatt, 64, said she received a notice in the mail that her food benefits had been cut. She doesn't understand why because her income hasn't changed, she said recently outside a SNAP office 60 miles west of St. Louis.

After paying for her spot at a mobile home park in Warrenton, she said she has about $300 left over from Social Security each month. The roughly $300 in SNAP benefits she received each month kept her afloat.

The new federal work requirements apply to Thweatt because she is not yet 65 years old.

More than 150,000 Missourians are at risk of losing some of their food assistance because of new work requirements that took effect Nov. 1.

It might be difficult for Thweatt to find a job. She hasn't been working for almost 20 years.

Food assistance is a lifeline for more than 650,000 Missourians — that's more than eight sellout crowds at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, where the NFL's Chiefs play. According to the Missouri Foundation for Health, a nonprofit philanthropic organization, the program helps feed 20% of Missouri's children each month. (The foundation provides financial support to KFF Health News.)

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, recent federal changes will result in more seniors, parents, veterans, homeless and former foster children having to overcome additional administrative hurdles to receive food assistance.

For years, thousands of Missourians have had difficulty accessing food assistance, largely because applicants must complete an interview, whether by telephone or in person. But many Missourians can't reach a state employee.

According to a lawsuit filed in federal court in 2022, applicants were forced to wait on hold or in line at state offices for hours. At times there were so many people waiting on hold that the phone system started hanging up on people, the lawsuit says.

Some SNAP offices in Missouri are staffed by just a single employee, according to Harpool's May 2024 order, adding to the strain.

In a statement provided to KFF Health News, the Missouri Department of Social Services said that in some locations it may be appropriate to employ a single employee because demand varies by location.

In Warrenton, makeshift phone booths line the walls of the food assistance office. People sit in a cubicle with a desk and use a telephone to conduct interviews with officials in other locations. A sign on the floor asks applicants to “please be patient with our progress” as the state works on technological improvements.

According to Harpool's order, the "evidence is undisputed" that Missouri's food assistance system experiences "unacceptable wait times" and that thousands of calls "cannot be attended to." These problems put Missourians at risk of losing their assistance “every time” they apply for food assistance, the judge wrote. To stay in the program, most households must submit documents and complete interviews on a regular basis.

A KFF Health News analysis of Missouri's SNAP reports showed the same problems persist more than a year later. In the 16 months following the judge's order, nearly half of all denied applications were denied at least in part because the hearing was not completed, according to data the state provided to the court as part of the order. This shows that the state system is failing the most vulnerable, said the judge.

In an order released in May of this year, Harpool found that Missouri did not show significant improvement and that its performance deteriorated in some respects. The state has not documented hiring a single employee or investing additional resources to process applications more quickly, Harpool wrote.

The Missouri Department of Social Services said the state legislature allocated money to hire temporary workers in other areas, freeing up staff to process SNAP applications.

To complete the necessary interviews for food assistance, the agency makes multiple attempts to reach applicants once an application is received.

Katie Deabler, an attorney with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice who represented Missourians in the case, said: "These are your neighbors, these are your children's classmates who are going hungry when the system doesn't work."

Trouble is coming

According to the Missouri Foundation for Health, about 68% of federal food assistance recipients are children, adults over 60 or people with a disability. Many who can work are already doing so.

Christine Woody, food security policy manager at Empower Missouri, an organization that works to eradicate poverty in the state, said Missouri lacks the money and will to fix its food aid system.

Woody and other advocates fear the federal changes will undermine the nation's strongest defense against hunger.

“For a state like Missouri that is already struggling to run the program, these new rules couldn’t come at a worse time,” said Bolen of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Missouri is a foretaste of the difficulties that lie ahead for other states, he said. Like Missouri, many states are reluctant to fund their food assistance programs. And now they will be forced to use state money to fill the gaps created by federal cuts, which is “fail[ing] the states,” Bolen said.

Proponents of the changes see it differently. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson previously called the cost shift to states “modest” and said it was necessary to reduce fraud. States “don’t have enough commitment,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” before the budget bill was passed.

But if states don't come up with the money to close the gap, Bolen said, they are left with two options: make it harder for people to qualify for SNAP or end the program altogether.

The move comes at a particularly difficult time for Thweatt. A few months ago she lost her partner of three decades. She was desperate and struggled to afford basic necessities. She doesn't turn 65 until April, meaning she will be subject to the expanded work requirements until then and may have to prove she has a job to maintain the remaining $220 in monthly food benefits. The state will apply the work rules to her case when it comes up for renewal, state officials said. Thweatt's car needs repairs and his license plates will soon expire, she said. She doesn't have the money to address either problem.

She sells everything she can, including an antique bedroom set, to afford essentials, she said.

“I can settle for a bag of chips a day,” Thweatt said. “So if that’s what I have to do, then that’s what I have to do.”

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