MISHAWAKA — After more than three years in jail, Bonita Richards works at temp jobs, piecing together 20 hours of work each week at various factories.
It’s just enough to satisfy a rule that Indiana’s food stamp office reinstituted in July — a rule that has cost about 18,300 adults across Indiana to lose their food stamps this month.
Richards, 39, who lives in Osceola, said she’s tried seeking a permanent job, but employers are often turned off when they see the felony that’s now four years into her past: forgery, for writing bad checks at local retailers. Meanwhile, her food stamps dropped from $194 to $102 per month after she started hitting temp jobs that paid $11 per hour.
It speaks to the difficulty of balancing work and benefits. But Indiana was due to bring back the rule, which dates back to 1996 and which aims to support the poor with work rather than government aid.
If you’re a food stamps recipient who’s able-bodied between age 18 and 49 and if you don’t have any dependent children, you need to work 20 hours per week or be in a job training program for 20 hours per week. If you fail to do that, you’ll be limited to three months of food stamps in a three-year time frame.
The rule isn’t new. It’s a federal requirement, and Indiana was among the states that suspended the rule in 2009 as part of a federal stimulus package during the recession, according to Indiana’s food stamp program, known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That stimulus package expired early this year. So, Indiana and other states had to reinstitute the rule.
To pay the bills, Richards said she also donates plasma for income and, on Monday, she picked up food at the Mishawaka Food Pantry.