WASHINGTON (FNS) -- Supermarket industry officials expressed relief last week that the $25 billion per year food stamp program will survive an overhaul of the nation's welfare program.
Congress approved a welfare reform bill last week that outlined food stamp program changes, and President Clinton has said he will sign it into law. An estimated $27 billion -- almost half the $61.4 billion in savings from the massive reordering of the national welfare system -- will come from food stamp spending cuts.
The supermarket industry, however, took comfort in its successful effort to defeat attempts to end the food stamp program and give the poor money for food.
President Clinton is expected to seek modifications in the food stamp cuts, which he criticized as being too deep.
John Block, president of Food Distrubutors International, lauded the changes in the welfare system for "getting entitlements under control. I have to give a strong cheer for this reform." Reductions in federal aid for food for the poor would not likely reduce retail sales, he added. "People will eat anyway," he said. "This will have only minimal impact on the amount of food consumed in this country. The difference is that people will be more inclined to get a job and buy food with their own money."
George Green, vice president and assistant general counsel at the Food Marketing Institute here, agreed. "We're very pleased that the food stamp program was reserved as a federal program." FMI has never taken a position on the benefit level of the program, he said, acknowledging the cuts would "likely have some impact, but it's hard to know to what extent."
A spokeswoman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America here said the association backed the effort to streamline the food stamp program and reduce fraud.
The food stamp savings under the reform are achieved by reducing the number of those eligible for the program and by scaling back the benefit amounts. Under the bill, which ushers in a new era in the nation's security net for the poor, an estimated 500,000 now on monthly food stamp rolls will no longer qualify. Able-bodied, childless adults between 18 and 50 years old will be disqualified if they received food stamps for more than four months in the last year and did not work or participate in a work program. Legal immigrants and felons won't be eligible for food stamps. For those still eligible for the program, their average benefit loss would be $485 a year in 2002, with the average food stamp benefit falling from its current level of 80 cents per person a meal to 67 cents, according to one study.
