Jennifer Brooks was shocked when, tucked in with a state notice that she had been approved for $16 in monthly food assistance, she found a letter about the “benefits of a healthy marriage.”
The one-page document from the Iowa Department of Human Services says people in stable marriages have steadier incomes, are less likely to get sick, and are more likely to exercise and eat properly.
“I thought, ‘Is this the '50s? Are we back to where a woman is advised to be dependent on a man?’” said Brooks, 45, the recently divorced co-owner of a small Des Moines pet shop.
The state may soon drop the letter, a part of its mailings for nearly a decade — but not because people like Brooks find it objectionable.
While it promotes traditional values, the letter has another purpose: It allows Iowa to meet a federal guideline and automatically expand eligibility for food assistance to more than 9,000 households a month.
That guideline — and the average $47 a month in food assistance it allows the state to provide low-income Iowans — is likely to end soon as the Trump administration tightens up on such aid.
Rules the administration proposed in July would close what the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a news release called a "loophole" that makes it possible for states to expand the agency’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to people “when they clearly don’t need it.”
The agency, which administers the program commonly known as SNAP, estimates that 1.7 million households nationally would no longer qualify. It estimates the net savings would be about $9.4 billion over five years.
A comment period on the rule ended last month. The Agriculture Department could issue a final rule at any time.
Here's how one-page healthy marriage handout comes into the equation: The federal guideline the Agriculture Department wants to end allows people to get SNAP without income or resource tests if they get service under another federal program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. For the state of Iowa, providing the letter is that service.
The provision was intended to eliminate unnecessary duplication of paperwork. Brooks, for example, said she had to complete a form about her finances when she applied to the state for food assistance — a process that Iowans generally do not have to repeat in order to get SNAP benefits.
But the Agriculture Department, which administers SNAP, contends states have used the provision to expand services beyond the original intent of the program. In the department's "loophole" news release, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue pointed to a situation in Minnesota last year where a millionaire collected food assistance to prove a point about how SNAP guidelines can be abused.
Defenders of the guideline refute allegations of widespread abuse, and said it has successfully reduced government red tape. If the new rule is approved, they said, applicants for food assistance will have to submit multiple applications in order to tap into both the state and federal programs, and will risk having their benefits delayed or denied if they make even simple errors.
“There’s a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork involved in applying for many of these programs and there are a lot of places where individuals can fall through the cracks,” said Natalie Veldhouse, a research associate with the Iowa Policy Project, a nonpartisan research group started by former Democratic state Rep. David Osterberg. “We’re talking about a lot of Iowans who are either unable to work or working low-wage jobs and unable to afford basic needs.”
But Angela Rachidi of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization that supports limited government, said eliminating the guideline will safeguard the integrity of the SNAP program. The group, citing an October report from the Congressional Research Service, contends it has allowed 37 states to expand SNAP food assistance to recipients who don’t qualify.
The healthy marriage letter is “a tactic Iowa has used to get around income eligibility requirements of SNAP,” Rachidi said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with marriage promotion.”
Brooks — who said she’s going through a rough time and had not previously sought public assistance — now understands why it was included in her food assistance approval materials. But she said she still finds it inappropriate.
“It kind of felt like the state was rubbing it in, like saying, ‘Now, if you would have stayed married, you wouldn’t need this $16 a month for food,’” Brooks said.
Jason Clayworth is an investigative reporter for the Register. Reach him at jclayworth@dmreg.com or 515-699-7058.
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