IMPLEMENTING AN EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING PROGRAM FOR FOOD STAMP RECIPIENTS: DILEMMAS AND CHOICES

The food stamp legislation of December 1985 provided another opportunity to experiment with welfare to work reform, this time through employment and training programs for food stamp recipients. This new program can be seen both as an opportunity to move people toward self-sufficiency and as a bundle of programmatic contradictions which threaten that opportunity. Federal requirements for the program are described as are the dilemmas to which they give rise. These dilemmas concern program coverage of food stamp recipients, utility of the program components, the use of sparse funds, and the incorporation of such values as the harmonization of programs, administrative simplicity, and fairness to food stamp recipients.