Maine Just Changed Their Food-Stamp Policy… Every State Should Do This

[bonnie]

Maine Just Changed Their Food-Stamp Policy… Every State Should Do This

The state of Maine is requiring able-bodied adults who are capable of working to do so in order to qualify for food stamps.

Citing the recession, President Barack Obama issued a waiver of the federal work requirement in 2010 and — despite continued claims from Democrats that the economy is humming along — has not lifted it. Republican Gov. Paul R. LePage, who won re-election handily on Tuesday, allowed the waiver for his state to expire.

 

As a result, adults 18 to 50 years old with no children and who are able to work must do so or volunteer for 20 hours each week. Otherwise, their benefits will be limited to three months over a three-year period, according to The Boston Globe (H/T Mad World News).

“People who are in need deserve a hand up, but we should not be giving able-bodied individuals a handout,” LePage said in a statement. “We must continue to do all that we can to eliminate generational poverty and get people back to work. We must protect our limited resources for those who are truly in need and who are doing all they can to be self-sufficient.”

“There is no excuse for able-bodied adults to spend a lifetime on welfare at the expense of hard-working, struggling Mainers,” he said in his State of the State address, according to Mad World News. “That is not what I call compassion.”

Only about 12,000 people out of the state’s population of 1.3 million, or less than one percent, are affected by LePage’s decision to let the waiver expire.

The Globe reported that most Maine residents they interviewed supported the move, even in the small town of Callas, where the unemployment rate is twice the state’s average and “prospects for economic revival are grim.”

Jean Wade, a fifty-something resident of Callas, told The Globe that her son is one of many who work under the table so that he can receive government aid.

“They sneak around doing odd jobs and getting paid,” she said. “We need to be whipped into shape.”

As for those who object that jobs are hard to find, making the work requirement unduly burdensome to those in need, the 81-year-old director of a food pantry in Callas had an answer for that, too.

“To be very blunt about it, there’s a hell of a lot of work to do around here, and we could use volunteers,” Arthur Carter told The Globe.

The work requirement is simple common sense. If taxpayers are to subsidize people’s income — a bad idea to begin with — taxpayers should get something in return. Knowing that the folks they are helping are using the handout to improve their own lives, and thus society, is one such benefit; the improvement to their communities brought about by a potential 240,000 new volunteer hours worked across the state is another.

More states should follow Maine’s lead. In fact, Obama should retract his waiver of the federal work requirement altogether.

 

[bonnie]

Food Stamp Recipients, Advocates Sue Over Work Requirements

Rachel Sheffield 

November 07, 2014  DAILYSIGNAL.COM ·

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Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Most Americans agree that able-bodied adults should be required to do some type of work to receive welfare assistance. But two nonprofit groups and a handful of food stamp recipients in New Mexico are suing the state for trying to encourage just that.

Last Friday, a New Mexico district judge placed a temporary hold on the work requirements, which were set to go into effect Nov. 1. On Wednesday of this week, Republican Gov. Susana Martinez announced that the state would restart the process of putting the work requirements into place rather than going through the litigation process. The state will pursue the same work requirements.

While the food stamp program doesn’t have much of a work requirement, it does have a modest one for able-bodied adults without children (or other dependents). Able-bodied adults without children are limited to three months of food stamp benefits unless they work or participate in some type of work activity for at least 20 hours a week. However, since 2009 New Mexico—along with many other states—has received a federal waiver allowing them to bypass the work requirement. But New Mexico has decided to forego the waiver. The state also plans to insert modest work requirements for other able-bodied adults who don’t have young children (under age 6), requiring them to look for work or participate in community service.

Mark Kennicott, a representative of the department, stated:But the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty and the Southwest Organizing Project say that work requirements are unfair and are suing the New Mexico Human Services Department.

The 2009 waiver was never meant to be permanent, and our goal is to help more New Mexicans become self-sufficient, earn job training skills and find employment.

Self-sufficiency through work is a principle that should undergird the welfare system. Welfare programs should encourage able-bodied individuals toward self-sufficiency. If welfare assistance is needed it is there, but work is better and welfare policy should encourage it first. Time away from work doesn’t look good on a resume, and unnecessarily enrolling in welfare impedes an individual’s long-term wage growth.

New Mexico is taking a first step toward promoting work. The food stamp program, however, needs greater reform at the federal level. The vast majority of food stamp funding comes from the federal government, as does the majority of funding for the roughly 80 means-tested welfare programs currently in operation.

Like the 1996 welfare reform that inserted work requirements into the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, food stamps should be reformed similarly. In the 1996 reform, work-eligible applicants were required, upon entry, to be working or to enroll in some type of work

[Gregory Matthews]

I do not intend to argue that such should not work.

 

However, regulations should be enforced.  I can well imagine that this will require some level of additional people and a structure to make certain that the regulations are fairly enforced and that the people involved are contributing fair work.

 

Just another valid reason as to why we need bigger government.

[bonnie]

I do not intend to argue that such should not work.

 

However, regulations should be enforced.  I can well imagine that this will require some level of additional people and a structure to make certain that the regulations are fairly enforced and that the people involved are contributing fair work.

 

Just another valid reason as to why we need bigger government.

For liberals bigger is always better,they should really be behind this.

Maybe MN just didn't realize that they needed more manpower when the welfare to work was actually  something that was pursued.

I did day care for mothers that were being forced,and forced is the correct word,to get a job and work towards getting off welfare.

Actually went pretty well after all the screaming of unfair died down.

Keeping track of who was working,who was actively searching for a job didn't seem to be a insurmountable problem.

Forced volunteer work also seems to be going well,judging from the work crews with supervision around town. So far food stamp recipients in MN don't have to do anything but be breathing to qualify

[bonnie]

I would go a lot further with the food stamp program.After waiting behind a few families obviously on food stamps I would include cleaning products and personal hygiene supplies.Eliminate the two and three 12 packs of coke,the large bags of candy the small children were carrying for starters. 

Many of us that provide the funding for those food stamps have to shop a lot more carefully than that.