The waivers for adults without children to receive food stamps are running out, and recipients are having to meet work requirements to keep receiving benefits.
They are known as ABAWDS (able-bodied adults without minor dependents) and have long been required to work, volunteer or take job-training courses to continue receiving benefits.
But emergency rules allowed for those requirements to be dropped during the prolonged economic crisis that made jobs hard to come by.
Now, with the economy improving, the exceptions are being dropped.
Some states, such as Maine, already are requiring food stamp recipients to work, volunteer or get training, The New York Times reports. The change will affect a million ABAWDS between 18 to 49 nationwide, the Times quoted the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities as saying.
Maine in 2014 went back to the three-month limit (over a three-year period) for childless adults.
"You've got to incentivize employment, create goals and create time limits on these welfare programs," Maine's commissioner of health and human services Mary Mayhew told the Times.
The change has dropped the number of recipients in Maine almost 80 percent, from 12,000 to 2,530.
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If 80% of them wouldn't work for food stamps, they didn't need them that badly to begin with. It's a good start, I'd like to see that expanded nationwide. Get people off welfare who aren't willing to do anything but sit on their asses, save a lot of money, then spend a little to increase the minimum amount received by the elderly and truly needy.
ReplyDeleteNow they will have kids just to get stamps.
ReplyDelete11:17 and them maybe those middle class people who aren't looking for a hand out but a hand up will be able to get some help. No wonder terrorists don't like Americans. They feel like everything should be given to them especially this younger microwave generation.
ReplyDelete12:08 they should have a max on the number of children that they can get benefits for while they are on state assistance. They shouldn't just be breeding. YES, I did say breeding because in most cases you see the mom looking like a model and the kids looking like they are from a 3rd world country advertisement to send money or adopt-a-kid commercial.
ReplyDelete11:17 the middle class is slowly dying. This country will soon become the haves and that have nots, the rich and the poor. The middle class has become the working poor.
ReplyDeleteMANDATORY DRUG TESTING!
ReplyDeleteI guess I will need to rent some kids, I ain't going to work. I got way too much TV to watch, I love my stories and game shows.
ReplyDeleteI love my Gelotto Ice cream, my steaks, fresh seafood, lobster, soda. I ani't got time for work.
Oh wow 2:11. . guess you looking for a weed card too.
ReplyDeleteMORE THAN 2 KIDS YOUR ON YOUR own.
ReplyDelete