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INCOME & WORK SUPPORTS UPDATE
NOVEMBER 2022
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Advancing Disability Equity and Access in TANF and SNAP for People with Long COVID
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This report recommends concrete actions policymakers and program administrators can take to improve accessibility of public programs for people with Long COVID and other disabilities. Throughout the report, we include quotes from interviews with people who have Long COVID about their experiences accessing public benefit programs and health care.
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| Oregon’s Groundbreaking Medicaid Waiver Sets New Bar for Equity |
| Oregon recently received approval to implement changes to its Medicaid program. Notably, the state will now provide continuous coverage for eligible children under age six, and 24 months of continuous coverage for eligible Oregonians who are six and older. The provisions will reduce administrative burdens for recipients, who won’t have to navigate the renewal process and its paperwork as frequently. |
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| For College Students Facing Poverty, Policymakers Must Lift Barriers to Economic Support |
| College students are often left out of public programs designed to help people meet their basic needs, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). CLASP recently spoke with young people who made clear it’s time for state and federal policymakers to lift these barriers to their success. They must act to ensure college students can access these programs. |
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IWS Update
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On October 18, Elizabeth Lower-Basch traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, at the invitation of advocates to testify before the State House and Senate Democratic Caucuses on the use of funds in the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. The program recently garnered national attention after a scandal exposed that the former agency head and his allies stole millions of dollars meant for Mississippi's poorest families. In her testimony, Elizabeth focused on the astonishing gap between the nearly 190,000 children in Mississippi living under the poverty level–disproportionately Black and Hispanic children–and the less than 2,000 families receiving cash assistance. She urged the legislature to better monitor TANF funds and develop a corrective compliance plan to avoid federal penalties and better meet needs. She was also pleased to meet Anna Wolfe in person, the Mississippi Today reporter whose investigative reporting has been central to public understanding of TANF in Mississippi.
Also in October, Ashley Burnside traveled to San Diego, California, to attend the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ (CBPP) TANF Advocate Conference. During the conference, attendees discussed state policy options to improve TANF and child support access for families with children. Ashley led table conversations about CLASP’s newly published report on “Advancing Disability Equity in TANF and SNAP for People with Long COVID,” and about EBT skimming instances in various states. CPG member Maryann Broxton also moderated the opening and closing plenaries for the conference.
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Upcoming Events
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Understanding Medicaid's Administrative Burdens as a Racial Equity Issue
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
3-4pm ET / 12-1pm PT
This webinar will draw from CLASP and CBPP’s recent paper, “States Can Reduce Medicaid’s Administrative Burdens to Advance Health and Racial Equity.” Administrative burdens, including lengthy applications, requests for paper verification documents, and complex eligibility policy prevent eligible individuals from enrolling in Medicaid and staying enrolled. Topics covered in this webinar will include the nature and history of administrative burdens in Medicaid, how and why administrative burdens disproportionately affect people of color, and policy and advocacy solutions to alleviate them. Presenters will also discuss opportunities to reduce administrative burdens and advance racial equity as part of the “unwinding” of Medicaid from the public health emergency continuous coverage requirement, likely to occur sometime in 2023.
An Anti-Racist Vision for SNAP: Ensuring Food Justice for All
Thursday, November 17, 2022
1:00-2:30pm ET / 10:00-11:30am PT
Please join the Community Partnership Group (CPG) for a webinar exploring the changes needed in the SNAP program to move it in an anti-racist direction. By rejecting racist assumptions and not merely limiting ourselves to what is politically possible today, we can create a program that truly centers people with low incomes of all races and ethnicities—and that meets the need to put food on the table while doing so.
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