Kansas Legislature approves requiring older adults to work to receive food assistance

The Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature approved work requirements for older adults who receive food assistance on Friday, setting up a possible veto fight with Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.

The approval of the legislation, HB 2094, capped a two-year drive by Republicans to bolster work rules for government assistance, after lawmakers in 2022 raised work requirements on most able-bodied adults over Kelly’s veto. This year’s bill expands those requirements to able-bodied adults ages 50 to 59 without children as a condition of aid from the Supplemental Food Assistance Program, once called food stamps.

The Kansas Senate approved the measure 26-12. The Kansas House followed in a 80-42 vote, sending it to Kelly.

Kelly hasn’t said explicitly whether she will veto the measure. But her veto last year and the Kansas Department for Children and Families, which she oversees, opposed the changes – strong signals that she will likely reject it.

The House and Senate votes were close to veto-proof majorities, suggesting Republicans may be able to find enough support to override a veto. Kelly’s office didn’t immediately comment.

Supporters of the measure have argued the changes are necessary to ensure residents take advantage of work search programs. The bill mandates older adults receiving food assistance must work at least 30 hours a week or join an employment and training program, similar to existing rules for younger recipients.

“That’s been a successful program,” said state Sen. Beverly Gossage, a Eudora Republican, making the case for expanding the requirements.

State Rep. Francis Awerkamp, a St. Marys Republican, emphasized that the legislation involves recipients interacting with a career navigator at the Kansas Department for Children and Families. The navigators, he said, go to great lengths to help individuals find work.

“It’s amazing how much effort they put into helping these individuals and they had a single goal: to help these individuals reach a point of having a career so they could be sustainable,” Awerkamp said.

Opponents have said it’s not the case that work requirements are needed to force recipients to work. Kansans who receive food assistance often hold low-wage jobs with inconsistent hours, they say. Instead, opponents argue that when recipients don’t work it’s often because of illness.

“Individuals between the ages of 50 and 59 are typically far too sick to be able to work,” said state Rep. Heather Meyer, an Overland Park Democrat.

The measure the Legislature approved Thursday was the result of a compromise between House and Senate negotiators. The House had originally also sought to include requirements that parents – whether they have custody of their children or not – cooperate with child support enforcement to receive food assistance. That idea fell flat in the Senate.

Instead, the compromise measure would require DCF to review a parent’s eligibility for child care subsidies at regular intervals based upon whether they are paying child support.

When Kelly vetoed last year’s work requirements bill, she cited inflation’s impact on food in her decision, saying at the time that with the “ rising costs of these necessities, we should be helping people afford the basics.”

Nearly 1,700 able-bodied adults without dependents have stopped receiving food assistance since the Legislature overrode the veto and the work requirements became law in July 2022, according to data from the Kansas Department for Children and Families.

Kansas has been reducing the number of people receiving food assistance for years. The average monthly food assistance caseload has fallen every year since 2014 with the single exception of 2021 amid the pandemic.

The proposal has been championed by the Florida-based Opportunity Solutions Project, a conservative think tank that serves as a lobbying arm of the Foundation for Government Accountability, which has received funding from Wichita’s billionaire Koch family. It has argued in favor of the work requirements bill by pointing to Kansas’ critical worker shortage.