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Welfare recipients who receive only child care, education, work training and other services would no longer be automatically eligible to receive food stamp benefits if President Bush's proposed federal budget is passed.
The president is expecting to save $57 million in 2006 and $1.1 billion over 10 years by tightening food stamp eligibility requirements as part of the federal government's effort to reduce the deficit to $207 billion in 2010.
Poor people receiving cash assistance, including many elderly and medically ill people, however, would remain automatically eligible.
The impact in states such as South Carolina, which has seen the number of people on food stamps increase 66.3 percent from January 2000 to January 2004, and areas with chronically high unemployment such as Orangeburg, could be devastating, according to local officials.
Harold Williams, executive director of the Department of Social Services in Orangeburg and Calhoun counties, said his departments have not had the chance to study Bush's budget proposal, but he said he hopes it does not pass as written.
"We haven't discussed it yet, but I know that's forthcoming," said Williams, noting that welfare recipients under the Family Independence program would be the ones to be cut out by the proposal.
The Family Independence program was instituted in the mid-1990s as part of nationwide welfare reform. The program gives welfare recipients more than just a check; other kinds of help are also provided, including child care, transportation, career counseling, helping with interview skills and giving assessment tests.
The program helps to put welfare recipients to work in a career, not just a job. Williams has said it has helped to remove more than 80 percent of people from the welfare rolls. These individuals, however, still qualify for food stamp benefits and are especially in need of them when they are not able to find a job in an area with an unemployment rate as high as Orangeburg County, he said. He said the threat of not receiving automatic food stamp assistance would have implications.
As of December, Orangeburg County's unemployment rate stood at 10.5 percent while Calhoun County's rate was at 6.4 percent.
"You still have the person who has lost their job and has two kids," he said. "They have no way of feeding their family. It's really going to hurt because the unemployment rate is so high. Even if you are training someone to get a job, it's so hard for them to find a job that would enable them to really feed their family.
"Most of the factories are not hiring anyone because the goods and services are not really selling. People are just not spending that much; they don't have anything to spend. A lot of the jobs we have here are seasonal type jobs, or people that work in convenience stores and things like that," he said.
Williams said there are nearly 9,000 individuals who are receiving food stamps in Orangeburg County. That number increases to nearly 18,000 people when children and other family members are included, which is about 20 percent of the county's population of 91,582 (as measured by the 2000 census).
In Calhoun County, about 2,000 individuals receive food stamp benefits; that figure increases to nearly 5,000 people when children and other family members are included, which is 32 percent of the county's population of 15,185.
Barnwell County DSS Director Cynthia Williams, who is also the interim director of the Bamberg County DSS, said 3,374 Bamberg County residents benefit from the food stamp program, or 20 percent of the population of 16,658.
"That's a significant percentage of the population ... and a substantial portion of that group will be affected (by the proposed food stamp eligibility reforms)," she said.
The national Food Research and Action Center reported last April that more than 23 million Americans received food stamp benefits. From January 2000 to January 2004, the center reports that South Carolina had a 66.3 percent increase in the number of food stamp recipients from January 2000 to January 2004.
Currently, South Carolina issues about $500 million yearly in food stamp benefits, which represents about 210,000 households. The benefits have been issued through the use of Electronic Benefits Transfer cards as of June 1, 2004. The cards resemble bank debit cards and are used in some states to electronically access food stamp benefits.
South Carolina's food stamp caseload has increased from 305,000 clients in FY 2001-2002 to 485,000 clients today. The increase is attributed to job losses, reduced hours and low paying jobs. There are also a considerable number of elderly people who qualify for and receive food stamp benefits.
"I foresee a great impact (if the president's proposed budget passes) because the number of clients that we have now that are receiving checks has tremendously reduced over the last five years since the implementation of the Family Independence Act, but the need for benefits has not. That population that falls in the middle there would be impacted," Cynthia Williams said.
"We work with them for a certain period of time, trying to help them become self-reliant. On the way, they continue to need food stamp assistance until they actually reach that point. Food is one of the primary needs. If they don't have that, the likelihood of being successful is going to go down," she said, noting the social impact would be coupled with an economic one.
"The food stamp recipients are using their stamps at the grocery stores, so those employees and whoever else is benefiting from those kinds of businesses would be impacted as well," she said.