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The administration said it is abandoning a previous plan to tighten work requirements for working-age adults without children because a Trump-era plan to cut food stamps is now off the table. Those restrictions were designed to stop federal food assistance benefits to 700,000 adults. It was a proposal that had drawn strong condemnation from anti-hunger advocates. The USDA (Department of Agriculture) said on 24^th March that it is withdrawing a Trump administration appeal of a federal court ruling that had blocked the planned restrictions on the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), also known as food stamps. Trump officials filed the appeal in May; just 2 months after the coronavirus pandemic had shuttered the economy and caused millions of people to lose their jobs. Point to be noted that hunger and food insecurity around the US have surged during the pandemic.

The USDA data shows more than 41.4 million people enrolled in SNAP as of November, up 13% from February 2020 before the public health crisis. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said the rule would have hurt some of the most at-risk adults during the ongoing crisis, such as rural Americans, people of color, and those with less than a high school degree, who typically have a tougher time finding employment. Vilsack issued a statement and said, “The rule would have penalized individuals who were unable to find consistent income when many low wage jobs have variable hours and limited to no sick leave”. The restrictions on food stamps were pursued by former USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue. The USDA rule focuses on so-called “able-bodied adults without dependents” or adults 18 to 49-years-old, and who don’t have disabilities or dependents.

The Trump administration had sought to make it harder for states to get a waiver, which could have deprived hundreds of thousands of jobless adults of food aid. A senior policy analyst at the left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Ed Bolen said, “The three-month cutoff penalizes workers for deep flaws in the labor market that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and greatly worsened. Taking away food benefits doesn’t make it easier for anyone to find a stable job; it just makes people hungrier. The Biden administration’s decision is great news”. SNAP enrollment typically moves in hand-in-hand with the economy, with enrollment increasing when the jobless rate jumps and receding when the labor market rebounds. At least 9% of US households or about 23 million households didn’t have enough to eat in the prior weeks.