Starting this week, more people who rely on food stamps — currently known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — will have to prove they’re working, looking for work or enrolled in job training in order to receive help. 

As part of last year’s debt ceiling showdown, lawmakers agreed to raise the age under which SNAP participants are required to fill out paperwork on their employment status — from 49 to 54 for adults without dependents or disabilities.  

And the fight over SNAP’s employment mandate likely isn’t over. 

Since 1996, SNAP has required what it considers able-bodied adults to fill out regular paperwork to prove their employment status. Last year, GOP lawmakers saw an opportunity to raise the age cut-off.

“There was just kind of a revisiting of whether that was the appropriate definition as the economy has changed, as the population has changed,” said Angela Rachidi, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute. 

Rachidi says adults without dependents or disabilities make up a growing share of the SNAP user population. 

The average benefit comes out to about $212 a month per person. And she says work reporting requirements ensure that help doesn’t disincentivize work for those who are capable. 

But there’s no strong evidence they actually improve employment outcomes, said Shawn Fremstad with the Center for Economic and Policy Research. 

“What you do see though is that it’s pushing people off the program,” he said, noting that the paperwork is confusing and cumbersome, enough to discourage some participants who actually are working. 

“So they’re not getting food stamps that they still really need,” he said.

And strict deadlines can lead SNAP users to accept the first available job, not the most stable or best paying. 

Heather Hahn with the Urban Institute researched the impact of SNAP benefits on beneficiaries in Arkansas. 

“One of the SNAP participants who we talked with said, ‘Right now I’ll take any job,'” Hahn said.

That includes unstable temp work, just to hold on to their food assistance. 

Parke Wilde, a food policy expert at Tufts, says associating SNAP with employment goals is helpful in budget talks, which come up every five years or so during Farm Bill negotiations. 

“I think it’s politically beneficial to this large anti-hunger program that in recent decades, it’s been more strongly connected with the labor market,” he said.

Wilde says that could help protect the program from painful cuts, whenever Congress gets around to negotiating a new Farm Bill.