$200 Million to Help Food Stamp Recipients Find Jobs

The New York Times

Washington — The Obama administration announced on Friday that it would give $200 million to 10 states for pilot projects to help food stamp recipients find jobs, part of a larger effort to reduce the rolls of a program that provides assistance to nearly 50 million Americans.

The projects include skills training, work-based learning and support services like transportation and child care. In Vermont, which will receive $8.9 million, the program will also focus on hard-to-serve populations like the homeless, ex-offenders and people with addictions.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez announced the grant recipients during a visit to Gwinnett Technical College in Georgia, a state that will receive $15 million. Other states receiving grants include California, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Virginia and Washington.

The Agriculture Department said it retained two research organizations, Mathematica Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and MDRC, which has offices in New York and California, to conduct independent evaluations of the projects, which were first authorized in the 2014 farm bill.....

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