Work requirements for basic needs programs ignore the reality of low-wage work.
A father of three works at a pizzeria where his schedule resembles a roller coaster: 40 hours one week, 48 hours the next, then plummeting to just eight hours before rising to 24.
Under new work requirements being considered by the U.S. Senate and recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, a slow month with this erratic scheduling could strip him and his family of vital food assistance, despite averaging 32 hours worked per week—well above the proposed 80-hour monthly minimum.
The sweeping legislation would not only intensify work requirements for basic needs programs, but it would also expand them to new groups, including parents with school-aged children like the pizzeria worker. These groups would now have to document 80 hours worked per month or lose access to benefits provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps). The bill would put millions of Americans at risk of losing some of their food assistance.
The parent working at the pizzeria is not lazy or unwilling to work. In fact, he is doing everything he can to work more hours. He is one of the parents in a study we have been conducting with over 1,000 service-worker parents, and his story reveals that today’s low-wage work environment is defined by extreme volatility that workers cannot control.
The low-wage labor market has fundamentally changed. With the decline of middle-skill jobs and the economic shift away from manufacturing, workers with low levels of formal education— especially parents—are now concentrated in the service sector.
Service sector jobs are volatile, with work schedules fluctuating in response to factors such as foot traffic, weather, local sporting events, and corporate profit targets.
Our research using national data shows that many low-income service workers are already working more than 80 hours per month on average across the year. One in three such workers, however, would nonetheless fall below an 80-hour-per-month threshold at least once in a year because of this type of inconsistency, which is overwhelmingly driven by employers.
Large majorities of low-income service-worker parents say they want to work more but cannot get the hours. And it is not as easy as just getting a second job: These jobs commonly have overlapping shifts, and in ongoing work we find that service workers have to “be available for work” about twice as many hours as they actually work.
Nonetheless, the heads of several federal agencies recently wrote that “if you want welfare and can work, you must.” What they are really saying, in writing about SNAP and Medicaid, is that “if you want food and medicine, you must work.” Research shows that they have it backward. When people are—essentially randomly—either approved or denied for SNAP, workers who get access to SNAP work more over the next three years. Basic needs supports make the volatile, exhausting reality of low-wage work sustainable for families such as the father working at the pizzeria.
If policymakers were taking the long view of the labor market, they would not be restricting support for households with kids. Research shows that children who grow up with stable food, housing, and health care access grow up to get more education, be healthier, and work and earn more.
In fact, every dollar spent on these programs has a return of nearly 10-to-1 on government investment, thanks to lower long-run health care costs, higher taxes paid, and less crime. That return is much higher than the “modest at best” return that researchers calculate we got from the tax cuts that policymakers are now trying to extend—and aiming to pay for by cutting these basic assistance programs.
These expanded work requirements will not save money or increase work in the long run. What they will do is punish workers such as the dad working at the pizzeria for reasons beyond their control. Instead of cutting programs that families need to survive, policymakers should focus on creating the kinds of jobs and wages that allow working people to support their families without fear that changes to their schedule or to SNAP will leave them hungry.
