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Impact
from Perpetual Punishment: A State-by-State Analysis of Welfare Benefit Bans for People with Prior Felony
The 1996 federal ban on SNAP and TANF benefits has—and continues to have—an enormous impact on the lives of people with felony drug convictions. Moreover, given the uneven enforcement of drug laws in the U.S., this impact is particularly acute in the Black community. In our analysis, we develop rough estimates of the impact of these bans since their enactment by using the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Corrections Reporting Program.25 The program collects data annually on prison admissions and releases, including demographic information and conviction offenses. We use the following methodology:
• We limit our analysis to 1997–2015. The year 1997 was one full year after the passage of the federal ban, and 2015 is the last year of the dataset.
• Our estimates only apply to states with full bans, since no reliable data exist on factors for partial bans (e.g., people in treatment programs, the quantity of drugs sold). While seven states have bans on TANF, South Carolina is the only state with a full ban on SNAP.
• Our analysis only consists of estimates. The number of people affected would most likely increase with the inclusion of people in states with partial bans. While we are unable to provide precise estimates for states with partial bans, we do provide a brief analysis of the potential harms of such bans.
CPAR | Perpetual Punishment: A State-by-State Analysis of Welfare Benefit Bans for People with Prior Felony Drug Convictions
KEY FINDINGS:
NEARLY HALF OF A MILLION PEOPLE RELEASED FROM CUSTODY HAVE BEEN INELIGIBLE FOR TANF, AND NEARLY 50,000 FOR SNAP.
As seen in Table 5, for the 18-year period 1997-2015, a combined 479,052 people are estimated to have been affected by TANF bans, and 47,832 people are estimated to have been affected by SNAP bans. Texas has the largest amount of people who have been ineligible for TANF due to a felony drug conviction (166,426) and West Virginia has the least (4,235). In each state with full bans, the most common charge for which people are being released from prison is a drug-related charge.
Table 5: Estimated number of people harmed by TANF and SNAP full bans, 1997-2015
STATES WITH FULL BANS
