Food Stamp Act Amendments of l980

Food Stamp Act Amendments of 1980 Title I: Reduction in Food Stamp Error and Fraud and Revision of Deductions - Amends the Food Stamp Act of 1977 to extend coverage under the food stamp program to shelters that prepare and serve meals for battered women and/or children. Excludes from household income payments or allowances made under any Federal, State, or local laws for the purpose of providing energy assistance for the purposes of the food stamp program. States that the Consumer Price Index referred to in the computation of household income is the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers. Permits a dependent care deduction from household income up to a maximum of $160 per month under specified conditions. Expands medical deductions for the elderly. Includes medical deductions for the blind and disabled in specified areas. Directs participating State agencies to elect and utilize, in calculating income for most households applying for food stamps, either of the following two methods: (1) taking into account the income reasonably anticipated to be received in the certification period and the income received during the 30 days preceding application, so as to ascertain the income actually available to the household for the certification period; or (2) using income received in a previous month as the basis in accordance with standards prescribed by the Secretary of Agriculture (retrospective accounting). Grants State agencies the opportunity to proceed against alleged fraudulent activity by specified means. Prescribes general standards for State periodic household income reporting requirements. Requires each State agency to determine the eligibility of applicant households by verifying includable income by specified means. Permits such agency to verify, prior to certification, the size of any applicant household and factors of eligibility for households falling within error-prone household profiles. Directs each State agency to require the use of photo identification for the receipt of coupons in specified metropolitan areas. Sets forth the methods the Secretary of Agriculture may use to determine when a State agency has failed to comply with: (1) the provisions of this Act; or (2) the Secretary's standards for the efficient and effective administration of such program. Permits the Secretary to withhold from such State such funds as he deems appropriate. Authorizes the Secretary to assume specified percentages of the administrative costs of State agencies whose rates of error and/or error reduction are at specified levels. Directs the Secretary to institute an error liability program under which each State agency shall pay to the Secretary the amount by which the dollar equivalent of the agency's payment error rate exceeds the dollar value equivalent of the national standard payment error rate, or an amount determined by a specified formula, whichever is higher. Requires the Secretary to change the method of calculating each State agency's payment error rate if, after study, the Secretary determines that it is feasible to include in such calculation invalid decisions denying eligibility to households which are in fact eligible. Requires the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to disclose to the Secretary and such agencies specified information about employment earnings and benefit payments contained in Social Security Administration records, and also any tax return information previously disclosed to him from the master files of the Internal Revenue Service, which is necessary for determining or auditing a household's eligibility. Requires similar disclosure regarding unemployment compensation and any refused offers of employment from State unemployment compensation agencies. Requires reports describing the results of workfare projects through fiscal year 1981. Directs the Secretary of Agriculture to pay 50 percent of the administrative costs of such projects. Title II: Food Stamp Funding - Authorizes appropriations for fiscal years 1980 and 1981 for the food stamp program.

Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on November 15, 1979. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.

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