The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides food assistance to almost 23 million households and 46 million people – a two-fold increase since 2006. The dramatic increase in participants and expenditures have led to proposals for cuts and work requirements to control costs. However, work requirements for work-able adults without dependent children have been part of SNAP since welfare reform in the late 1990s. Work-able adults can only receive SNAP benefits for 3 months in a 36-month period unless they work 20 hours per week or participate in a work program. These requirements can be waived when the economy is weak, which has been the case in most states since the Great Recession. But these waivers will largely expire by the end of FY2015.

Waiving the work requirement during the recession and its aftermath led to dramatic shifts in the composition of the SNAP caseload. The chart above shows that the percentage of SNAP cases that included a work-able adult was 7.8% in 2008 and jumped to 19.1% by 2010, while the percentage of SNAP cases with children declined from 50.6% to 44.8% during this same time. In fact, although households with a work-able adult made up only 7.1% of SNAP households in 2006 they accounted for 32% of the increase in SNAP cases from 2006 to 2013 (based on USDA data on SNAP household characteristics).

The work requirements are important for two reasons.

First, they ensure that work-able adults are pursuing employment. As Casey Mulligan of the University of Chicago has argued, waiving SNAP work requirements (along with other policy changes) increases job acceptance penalties, meaning that people are less willing to obtain employment because there are no requirements associated with receiving public benefits. This is bad for the economy and bad for the workers.

Second, the work requirements force recipients to disclose earnings from informal employment or “off-the-books” work. Although it is difficult to quantify, many work-able adults receiving SNAP likely work for pay without disclosing their earnings. A work requirement ensures that they either disclose those earnings or leave the program.

While recent media reports have suggested that the work requirement for able-bodied adults without dependents in SNAP is harsh, it may lead to more work, increased earnings, and greater public confidence in the program. This might help relieve some concerns about the growth of the program and counter arguments for cutting benefits more substantially.

Follow AEIdeas on Twitter at @AEIdeas.