President Biden has rightfully pledged to not take away people’s health care or increase poverty as part of the debt ceiling negotiations. The administration must hold this line and reject any new work requirements for Medicaid, or increased work requirements for SNAP and TANF.
"A report by the Center for Law and Social Policy notes the severe backlog of applications at SSA as a hindrance for long COVID applicants, and others."
CLASP was featured in a segment on the Last Week Tonight with John Oliver show about the misuse of TANF funds by public officials in Mississippi and other states. The piece cited some of our resources. View here:
Late last year, Congress included provisions in the year-end omnibus bill to address EBT skimming from SNAP recipients. This is a promising step, but we encourage federal and state lawmakers to do more.
“In this case, it’s even worse: the state is taking money paid by a father for children who the state didn’t even provide assistance to,” said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, deputy director for policy for the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).
On December 19, Parker Gilkesson spoke at a virtual briefing hosted by the Drug Policy Alliance that examined how the lifetime SNAP/TANF drug conviction ban continues to harm families and why the time for repeal is now.
Elizabeth Lower-Basch said that even if a building were to benefit needy families — low-income housing development, for example — the use of TANF funds on construction is strictly prohibited by federal law.