Maine Institutes Work For Food Stamps Policy
Dec 31, 2016 12:29:56 #
The Need for Work Requirements
Since 2008, the food stamp caseload of adults without dependents who are able-bodied has more than doubled nationally, swelling from nearly 2 million recipients in 2008 to around 5 million today. They gained notoriety when Fox News aired a documentary on food stamps featuring 29-year-old Jason Greenslate, a Californian who reported that he spends his time surfing and playing in his rock band, all the while receiving benefits from the food stamp program.
>>> Read the full report by Robert Rector, Rachel Sheffield, and Kevin D. Dayaratna: Maine Food Stamp Work Requirement Cuts Non-Parent Caseload by 80 Percent
In response to the growth in food stamp dependence, Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, recently established work requirements on recipients who are without dependents and able-bodied. In Maine, all able-bodied adults without dependents in the food stamp program are now required to take a job, participate in training, or perform community service.
Job openings for lower-sk**l workers are abundant in Maine, and for those ABAWD recipients who cannot find immediate employment, Maine offers both training and community service slots. But despite vigorous outreach efforts by the government to encourage participation, most childless adult recipients in Maine refused to participate in training or even to perform community service for six hours per week. When ABAWD recipients refused to participate, their food stamp benefits ceased.
In the first three months after Maine’s work policy went into effect, its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents plummeted by 80 percent, falling from 13,332 recipients in Dec. 2014 to 2,678 in March 2015.
This rapid drop in welfare dependence has a historical precedent: When work requirements were established in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program in the 1990s, nationwide caseloads dropped by almost as much, albeit over a few years rather than a few months.
Government should aid those in need, but welfare should not be a one-way handout.
The Maine food stamp work requirement is sound public policy. Government should aid those in need, but welfare should not be a one-way handout. Nearly nine out of ten Americans believe that able-bodied, non-elderly adults who receive cash, food, or housing assistance from the government should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid.
LePage’s reform puts the public’s convictions into action. The Maine reforms recognize that giving welfare to those who refuse to take steps to help themselves is unfair to taxpayers and fosters a harmful dependence among beneficiaries.
Off-the-Books Employment
The Maine work requirement also reduces fraud. The most common type of fraud in welfare involves “off the books” employment. In food stamps, as in other welfare programs, benefits go down as earnings rise.
But “off the books” employment is rarely reported to the welfare office; hiding earnings enables a recipient to “double-dip,” getting full welfare benefits he is ineligible to receive while simultaneously receiving earnings from an unreported job.
A work requirement substantially reduces welfare fraud because insisting a recipient be in the welfare office periodically interferes with holding a hidden job. Recipients cannot be in two places at once. Faced with a work requirement, many recipients with hidden jobs simply leave the rolls. No doubt, a significant part of the rapid caseload decline in Maine involves flushing fraudulent double-dippers out of the welfare system.
Government data show that many adults without children on food stamps use their own funds counter-productively. Over half of able-bodied adults without dependents regularly smoke tobacco; those who smoke consume on average 19 packs of cigarettes per month at an estimated monthly cost of $111. These individuals rely on the taxpayers to pay for their food while they spend their own money on cigarettes.
The federal government should establish work requirements similar to Maine’s for the 4.7 million able-bodied adults without dependents currently receiving food stamps nationwide. If the caseload drops at the same rate it did in Maine (which is very likely), taxpayer savings would be over $8.4 billion per year. Further reforms could bring the savings to $9.7 billion per year: around $100 per year for every individual currently paying federal income tax.
Some may argue that individual state governments, and not the federal government, should choose whether to require work in the food stamp program. But over 90 percent of food stamp funding comes from the federal government. Since the federal government pays for nearly the entire food stamp program, it has the obligation to establish the principles on which the program operates.
Requiring work for able-bodied welfare recipients was a key element of President Ronald Reagan’s welfare philosophy. It was the foundation of the successful welfare reform in the 1990s. But the idea of work in welfare has fallen by the wayside. It is time to reanimate the principle.
Since 2008, the food stamp caseload of adults without dependents who are able-bodied has more than doubled nationally, swelling from nearly 2 million recipients in 2008 to around 5 million today. They gained notoriety when Fox News aired a documentary on food stamps featuring 29-year-old Jason Greenslate, a Californian who reported that he spends his time surfing and playing in his rock band, all the while receiving benefits from the food stamp program.
>>> Read the full report by Robert Rector, Rachel Sheffield, and Kevin D. Dayaratna: Maine Food Stamp Work Requirement Cuts Non-Parent Caseload by 80 Percent
In response to the growth in food stamp dependence, Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, recently established work requirements on recipients who are without dependents and able-bodied. In Maine, all able-bodied adults without dependents in the food stamp program are now required to take a job, participate in training, or perform community service.
Job openings for lower-sk**l workers are abundant in Maine, and for those ABAWD recipients who cannot find immediate employment, Maine offers both training and community service slots. But despite vigorous outreach efforts by the government to encourage participation, most childless adult recipients in Maine refused to participate in training or even to perform community service for six hours per week. When ABAWD recipients refused to participate, their food stamp benefits ceased.
In the first three months after Maine’s work policy went into effect, its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents plummeted by 80 percent, falling from 13,332 recipients in Dec. 2014 to 2,678 in March 2015.
This rapid drop in welfare dependence has a historical precedent: When work requirements were established in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program in the 1990s, nationwide caseloads dropped by almost as much, albeit over a few years rather than a few months.
Government should aid those in need, but welfare should not be a one-way handout.
The Maine food stamp work requirement is sound public policy. Government should aid those in need, but welfare should not be a one-way handout. Nearly nine out of ten Americans believe that able-bodied, non-elderly adults who receive cash, food, or housing assistance from the government should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid.
LePage’s reform puts the public’s convictions into action. The Maine reforms recognize that giving welfare to those who refuse to take steps to help themselves is unfair to taxpayers and fosters a harmful dependence among beneficiaries.
Off-the-Books Employment
The Maine work requirement also reduces fraud. The most common type of fraud in welfare involves “off the books” employment. In food stamps, as in other welfare programs, benefits go down as earnings rise.
But “off the books” employment is rarely reported to the welfare office; hiding earnings enables a recipient to “double-dip,” getting full welfare benefits he is ineligible to receive while simultaneously receiving earnings from an unreported job.
A work requirement substantially reduces welfare fraud because insisting a recipient be in the welfare office periodically interferes with holding a hidden job. Recipients cannot be in two places at once. Faced with a work requirement, many recipients with hidden jobs simply leave the rolls. No doubt, a significant part of the rapid caseload decline in Maine involves flushing fraudulent double-dippers out of the welfare system.
Government data show that many adults without children on food stamps use their own funds counter-productively. Over half of able-bodied adults without dependents regularly smoke tobacco; those who smoke consume on average 19 packs of cigarettes per month at an estimated monthly cost of $111. These individuals rely on the taxpayers to pay for their food while they spend their own money on cigarettes.
The federal government should establish work requirements similar to Maine’s for the 4.7 million able-bodied adults without dependents currently receiving food stamps nationwide. If the caseload drops at the same rate it did in Maine (which is very likely), taxpayer savings would be over $8.4 billion per year. Further reforms could bring the savings to $9.7 billion per year: around $100 per year for every individual currently paying federal income tax.
Some may argue that individual state governments, and not the federal government, should choose whether to require work in the food stamp program. But over 90 percent of food stamp funding comes from the federal government. Since the federal government pays for nearly the entire food stamp program, it has the obligation to establish the principles on which the program operates.
Requiring work for able-bodied welfare recipients was a key element of President Ronald Reagan’s welfare philosophy. It was the foundation of the successful welfare reform in the 1990s. But the idea of work in welfare has fallen by the wayside. It is time to reanimate the principle.
Dec 31, 2016 12:48:36 #
Dec 31, 2016 12:54:14 #
GEE WHAT A NOVEL IDEA. Wonder how many Government officials it took to figure that out. If they don't want to work let them starve. 5 stars for Maine.
snowbear37 wrote:
The Need for Work Requirements br br Since 2008, ... (show quote)
Dec 31, 2016 14:07:54 #
wuzblynd
Loc: thomson georgia
jimahrens wrote:
GEE WHAT A NOVEL IDEA. Wonder how many Government officials it took to figure that out. If they don't want to work let them starve. 5 stars for Maine.
Amen to that. Way to much fraud, and no one seems to care. I live in the Augusta GA. Area and have since the 70s . About 30 to40 percent actually qualify . The rest are s**mmers. That's a lot of money. Lazy folks don't deserve nothing.
Dec 31, 2016 15:46:50 #
snowbear37 wrote:
The Need for Work Requirements br br Since 2008, ... (show quote)
Clinton had a work for welfare program during his administration but Obama got rid of it.
Jan 1, 2017 07:18:11 #
crazylibertarian
Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island
snowbear37 wrote:
The Need for Work Requirements br br Since 2008, ... (show quote)
This will probably wind up in court, driven by the Maine CLU or other group.
Jan 1, 2017 11:15:31 #
crazylibertarian wrote:
This will probably wind up in court, driven by the Maine CLU or other group.
You're probably right, but the states have to get some of their power back and the Feds need to follow the Constitution and stop trying to bully the states. The Federal government has usurped enough of states' powers. I say this even though I'm in Taxachusetts, but other states can benefit from the Feds getting their noses out of things that don't concern them.
Jan 1, 2017 12:54:52 #
crazylibertarian
Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island
snowbear37 wrote:
You're probably right, but the states have to get some of their power back and the Feds need to follow the Constitution and stop trying to bully the states. The Federal government has usurped enough of states' powers. I say this even though I'm in Taxachusetts, but other states can benefit from the Feds getting their noses out of things that don't concern them.
I am from New York City but spent more of my ife in Rhode Island, need I say more?
As I recall, in the 1960s or 1970s, some states tried to establish a residency requirement for welfare benefits. Among the backers was none other than then governor, spendthrift and New World Orderite, Nelson Rockefeller. It was challenged, and, again as I recall, by the c*******t surrogate American Civil Liberties Union & others. SCOTUS found within The Constitution a freedom to travel, with which I agree, & that this violated it, with which I don't.
I agree thoroughly with your beliefs on federal bullying the states but hold little hope of it gaining traction
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