Since the House version of the bill was introduced, critics of its changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, have argued that they’re an excuse to kick otherwise eligible people off food stamps. It’s not just the work requirements that would reduce the number of people receiving benefits, analyses have shown; as my colleague Vann R. Newkirk II and I reported in September, a simulation found that the House bill’s changes to other eligibility requirements would remove 2 million people from the program. The requirements would have an outsize effect on poor, rural communities where jobs aren’t easily available.

Pence’s support for “dignity in work” belies the reality of the work requirements: According to a new study from the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project, most SNAP recipients either are already working or physically can’t. The share of people who aren’t already subject to work requirements within the program, who aren’t currently working, or who have no interest in working? “Less than 1 percent,” said Lauren Bauer, a Hamilton Project fellow and one of the study’s authors.

Indeed, the study found that two-thirds of the people who would be “newly exposed” to work requirements under the bill are already in the labor force. “This notion that we need to get people back into the workforce and back enjoying the dignity of work—two-thirds are working,” Bauer told me. “They’re working at low-wage jobs with volatile hours, and they’re not earning enough to earn their way out of the program. But two-thirds are working.”

She said a large share of those who are consistently out of the labor market report that they have serious health problems preventing them from working, even when they’re not on disability. And her research suggests they’re telling the truth. “They’re not lying,” she said. “People who say they’re not well are really not well.” The House bill’s strict reporting standards, which include verification of employment or a doctor’s note explaining why someone isn’t employed, could result in collateral damage: People who are working, or are too sick to work, could lose benefits if they don’t meet what Bauer calls the “paperwork burden.”

And contrary to Pence’s implication, the holdup over the farm bill isn’t because of disagreements between Democrats and Republicans. Instead, it’s because there’s a massive chasm between the bill House Republicans just barely passed and the Senate’s bill, which passed with a decisive majority of 86 votes. The fierce divisions between the two chambers have effectively stalled the negotiations over the legislation, which is currently in conference committee.

The divide isn’t just over SNAP, which is in the section of the bill that deals with nutrition. The chambers have yet to come to an agreement on several of the farm bill’s 12 sections, conservation and commodities chief among them. “If we fixed SNAP today, I still wouldn’t have a farm bill,” House Agriculture Committee Chair Mike Conaway, a Republican from Texas, told a reporter earlier this week.