Restoring the path from welfare to work
Why are 2.1 million able-bodied adults without dependents, ages 19 to 49, receiving food stamps when there are a million more job openings than job seekers?
Why are 36 million people receiving food stamps today when only 24 million people were receiving them in 2006 when unemployment was higher?
The answer to both questions is simple: The Obama administration loosened the requirements to qualify, and states opened the flood gates.
Cynics would add that Democrats know keeping people on government welfare means keeping them as registered Democrats. They won’t bite the hand that feeds them — literally, in this case.
In 1996, responding to media stories about “welfare queens,” Republicans enacted major welfare reform legislation. President Clinton signed the “Welfare to Work” bill, saying “We are ending welfare as we know it.”
The new law required childless adults to work — or train for work — at least 20 hours per week to qualify for food stamps. Those who didn’t would be limited to three months of benefits over a three-year period.
Despite massive Democratic hand-wringing at the time, liberal magazine The Atlantic declared that “welfare reform was a success.”
The 1996 welfare reform law gave states much of the administrative responsibility while 100 percent of the funding came from the federal government subject to federal rules.
Like Medicaid, separating funding from administration incentivized states to game the system to get additional “free” federal funding, money otherwise known as your tax dollars. States could request waivers for the work requirement in economically struggling areas, waivers the Obama administration handed out like candy on Halloween.
States set about gerrymandering economically stressed area boundaries to maximize their funding. For example, Illinois has 102 counties, 101 of which are designated as distressed. The Obama administration turned a blind eye to this and similar abuses, renewing waivers for 1,100 supposedly distressed areas across 33 states.
Today, states continue waiving work requirements in areas with record-high job openings, making a mockery of the work requirement.
But now there’s a new sheriff in town. Food stamps — renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — are getting new Trump administration rules, effective in April. In a nutshell, state waivers will be limited to areas with unemployment rates above six percent and will be granted for one year rather than two.
Consistent with the law’s provisions, work and training requirements will not apply to those who have dependents at home or are disabled, pregnant, or over the age of 49. The revised rules will affect an estimated 668,000 of the current 36 million beneficiaries who will need to find jobs or enter training programs.
Nonetheless, for liberals and Democratic politicians, it’s 1996 all over again. To hear them tell it, you’d think Trump himself was yanking citizens out of breadlines and tossing them into the street.
For example, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer whined, “The Trump administration is driving the vulnerable into hunger.”
If Democrats like Schumer claim that now is not the time to implement the law as written — with unemployment at 3.6 percent and wages rising fastest for low-income workers — then they might as well announce that SNAP welfare is a permanent way of life for those able but unwilling to work.
There was a day when progressives claimed that welfare would be a hand up, not a handout. Today, they measure policy success by how many Americans they can make dependent on government.
