A bill that would expand Hoosier eligibility for SNAP benefits has been killed.
Senate Bill 549, authored by Sen. Mark Stoops, D-Bloomington, was heard Monday by the Committee on Family and Children Services.
The bill would have created an eligibility category for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that would no longer disqualify low-income Hoosiers if they have more than $2,250 in assets.
But because the bill would have to be recommitted to the appropriations committee for further discussion, committee chairman Sen. Ronald Grooms, R-Jeffersonville, declined to hold a vote, essentially killing the bill.
“Perhaps ... next year this can be something we look at again,” Grooms told Stoops. “You really do make some valid arguments about the situation we’re in ... (but) the fact I told (the Legislative Services Agency) we’d be hearing the bill and not voting, I have to stand with that decision.”
As part of the SNAP eligibility screening process, individuals are given an asset test. Those with more than $2,250 in assets, including savings, cash, real estate and vehicles, are disqualified from the program.
Indiana’s asset limit disproportionately impacts the elderly and recently unemployed — two groups that heavily rely on savings — and results in potential recipients spending their savings in order to enroll in the program, Feeding Indiana's Hungry executive director Emily Bryant told the committee.
By discouraging SNAP recipients from saving money, the asset limit effectively traps participants in poverty, said Derek Thomas, senior policy analyst for the Indiana Institute of Working Families.