State officials had assured food bank operators in August a food stamp work waiver that was ending in December would be renewed. It wasn't.
TRENTON -- On New Year's Eve, Gov. Chris Christie's administration stunned food bank operators and anti-poverty groups with the announcement that a temporary food stamp program for 11,000 unemployed people was ending.
But that action didn't only surprise those serving New Jersey's hungry. It suddenly reversed what the Christie administration had told them would happen months before that, a memo obtained by NJ Advance Media confirms.
State Human Services officials had assured food bank operators in August that when this program, which allowed people to forgo the requirement they hold a job in order to receive food stamps, ended in December, a new program would take its place.
Christie administration ends waiver for food stamp work requirement
The state officials also said they would ask the federal government to continue to waive the job requirement for people living in counties and some cities where the unemployment rates were higher than the statewide average.
"As promised, below are the list of counties that are waived. Can you please forward to the rest of the group as I do not have everyone's email address?" according to the Aug. 24 email Human Services officials sent to a food bank director that was obtained by NJ Advance Media.
"Here are the 15 counties that are waived: Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Essex, Gloucester, Hudson, Mercer, Ocean, Passaic, Salem, Somerset, Sussex, and Union Counties," according to the email.
But the Christie administration changed course.
Instead of cobbling together a new food stamp safety net under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, state officials decided to pull the plug -- something anti-poverty groups say will only exacerbate the hunger problem in the state.
"The upshot is we will inevitably have more hungry people in New Jersey," said Adele LaTourette, director of the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition., who was among those who had been informed of the contingency plans over the summer.
"We find this just unacceptable," she said.
The advocates questioned whether there are available job and training programs, particularly for people who struggles to find work because they have spotty education and work histories.
State Department of Human Services spokeswoman Nicole Brossoie on Friday said the administration made the decision "after careful review of the new federal waiver opportunities in relation to the state's employment rate and other economic factors."
"Rather than piecemeal New Jersey's compliance with a federal work requirement for SNAP benefits, New Jersey would augment its workforce training strategies to move this population into work programs that will help clients to meet the work requirement, maintain benefits and progress to self-sufficiency," Brossoie said.
The federal government has granted similar regional requests to waive the work requirements in 33 others states, so approval for New Jersey's waiver was very likely, said Ellen Vollinger, legal director for Food Research and Action Center, a national advocacy organization.
"SNAP benefit cut-offs hurt the well-being of needy individuals, further strain local charities and pull federal dollars out of local commerce," said Vollinger, who joined anti-poverty advocates at a Statehouse press conference last week to urge the administration to rethink its decision.
Federal law requires people who are "able-bodied adults" from 18 to 50 years old without kids to work at least 20 hours a week to receive SNAP benefits. Unemployed people are limited to three months of benefits over a three-year period.
But because of the struggling economy, a waiver has been available in New Jersey since 2009 to allow this population to qualify for the aid without a time limit despite not fulfilling the work requirement.
By the end of 2015, however, New Jersey was "ineligible" to continue the state waiver because the state's economy has "improved dramatically," Brossoie said.
The state unemployment rate in New Jersey is 5.3 percent, the lowest since 2008. The rate was 5.7 percent in August.
There are 900,000 people in New Jersey receiving SNAP benefits, including 60,000 who are able-bodied and childless and who must work or be enrolled in a training program to qualify, Brossoie said. Of these people, 11,000 are not meeting the work requirement and could lose benefits.
Unless they found a job or a training program, benefits ended Jan. 1 for people who live in Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic, Somerset and Sussex counties. People living in the remaining categories lose benefits beginning Feb. 1.
They received an average SNAP benefit of about $160 to $180 a month, Vollinger said.
Half of the people affected by the loss of the program never graduated from high school, said Raymond Castro, senior analyst for New Jersey Policy Perspective, a left-leaning research and advocacy group "These cannot compete for the scarce jobs out there."
New Jersey's long-term unemployment rate -- defined as more than 27 weeks --is among the highest in the nation, noted Dennis Micai, director of the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.
"There are a lot of inferences that these people are lazy or caused this problem. The people making a lot of these rules have never talked to (chronically unemployed) people in their life," Micai said. "I don't understand the benefit, other than politically."
The SNAP program and its quick expansion during the post-recession became a political issue in the 2012 presidential election, when Republicans branded Barack Obama "the food stamp president."
Christie, who is running for president, vetoed a bill in 2014 that would have raised the amount of money families must receive in heating assistance subsidies in order to qualify for a larger portion of SNAP benefits. He said the bill would have exploited a loophole by unilaterally raising heating aid "without regard to actual heating and cooling expenses."
Christie's decision about the SNAP program demonstrates how he is the balancing his roles as governor and a presidential candidate, said Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics.
"It probably doesn't help to have headlines about cutting people off from food stamps, which is why it makes sense to announce it on New Year's Eve, when the public is focused on other things," Dworkin said.
"Right now, the presidential race is very tight as several candidates, including Christie, fight to be the dominant establishment alternative to Donald Trump. In this kind of close race, cutting off the SNAP program may make a difference among hard-core Republican primary voters," he said.
Diane Riley, advocacy director for the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, said the 1,100 food programs around the state will be expected to fill the need for people who lose SNAP. But half of the people she serves also receive SNAP because the money doesn't stretch very far, she said.
"Combining our food with SNAP gives them the nutrition they need. These are not people who are trying to get over on us," Riley said.
"I don't know where these work programs are. And I know we are not ready for this," she said.
Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.