The Big Beautiful Bill signed into law by President Trump continues to create collateral damage across the country, from the Oregon Capital Chronicle: ” The lines of responsibility for Sara Gwin have been blurred over the past few years.
As an experienced benefit eligibility worker for the state of Oregon, she has long taken pride in coming up with ideas for the hands-on training required by the hundreds of employees who process applications for benefits administered by the state like cash payments, medical assistance or food stamps. But she often has had to step up for that teaching role without additional pay.
The state struggles to consistently employ workers like Gwin in lead positions, with its human services department only having funding for about 28% of the lead workers it needs, according to the agency. The result is that it’s harder to provide real-life experience to workers seeking to aid vulnerable Oregonians and avoid errors at a time of federal scrutiny on benefit programs nationwide.”
“Looming federal cuts related to over and underpayment errors in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are estimated to drain roughly $500 million every two years from the human services department, part of the largest chunk of cuts expected to impact the agency.
Eligibility workers like Gwin and policy experts, however, say bringing the error rate down in light of stricter federal eligibility requirements and a lack of adequate training will prove difficult. Two other eligibility workers with differing levels of experience echoed Gwin’s complaints in interviews with the Capital Chronicle.
“Every time someone wants to cut money from the program, they introduce a new complicated rule. The more complicated rules, the more there are possibilities that someone’s not going to understand them quite rightly, and mistakes will be made,” said David Super, a professor of law and economics at Georgetown University. “If anything, the people we should blame that for is Congress.”
“During different periods, like open enrollment for medical which happens every October, November, time frame, we know we’re going to see greater demand, especially in our call centers, as we move through things, so we try to shift work where we can,” Singer said. “But that’s one that I think we’ll be struggling with just over the next year, as we see what these administrative requirements really feel like.”
In the meantime, eligibility workers say they continue to look for support from leadership and in meetings where they can share feedback, but that the conditions remain taxing. ”
You can read the entire article here: https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/09/23/a-universal-struggle-oregon-eligibility-workers-brace-for-federal-benefit-cuts/
I speak from experience when I say that eligibility workers have a much more complex job than most people give them credit for. They need the soft skills of customer service and have to learn the various policies for each assistance program. As a supervisor I had to know 12 programs’ policies. Each handled income, assets, and expenses in a different way. Most eligibility workers have to know 2-8 programs’ policies.
Workers are underpaid- many just miss the threshold for qualifying for assistance themselves. As more people have applied for benefits the workforce has not been increased. Some states have hired external companies to help manage the work load but that has created some problems of it’s own. External workers are not trained to the same extent that state employees are and do not have the same access to information or the authority to make benefit eligibility decisions. This has proven confusing for clients and frustrating for all parties.
States save money in the short term hiring external vendors to assist with the workload as they do not have to pay for any benefits like sick leave, insurance, paid time off, etc. In the long term they are creating a snowball that is rolling downhill and gathering momentum.
Workers who can leave will. There is no incentive to keep having more and more responsibility piled on you with no increase in compensation or any concrete paths to reducing the workload.
We will continue to see and hear more and more stories like this. It is almost as if those in charge want the systems to break.
What do you think? What is the situation in your state?
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