In 2009, 33,490,000 people received food stamp benefits. And it only went up from there under Obama’s watch. By October of 2016, 44,219,123 people received food stamp benefits, an increase of about 10,729,000.
Under President Donald Trump, that trend has finally reversed. The number of food stamp dependent Americans hit a six-year low during Trump’s first year in office, with two million going off the dole. Much of that is attributable to an improving economy, but there’s still much room for improvement.
One of the signature achievements of the Republican Congress during the Bill Clinton Presidency was “the end of welfare as we know it” – where work requirements were added at a federal level for all able-bodied adults that were to receive welfare benefits. Able-bodied adults were intended to work, train, or volunteer for at least 20 hours per week in order to be eligible for food stamps. In other words, this reform made it impossible for one to indefinitely live off welfare.
“Workfare” requirements were suspended by Obama’s Department of Agriculture for food stamps during the last recession, which makes sense during a recession when it’s unlikely one will be able to find a job. But it’s since been up to the States to re-introduce work requirements. States are better off because they have fewer people on welfare, and able-bodied people are better off because they’re working. Those states and their corresponding decreases in the percentage of their able-bodied residents on the dole are as follows: -85% in Alabama, -58% in Georgia, and -75% in Maine.
And Trump would like to make that Federal policy.
According to the Washington Examiner:
Last week, President Trump signed an executive order on welfare reform, laying the groundwork for federal and state agencies to promote economic mobility and opportunity through work. Just two days later, the House Committee on Agriculture released a draft proposal of the 2018 Farm Bill, calling for an expansion of work requirements for able-bodied adults receiving food stamps and committing to initiatives that will reduce fraud and abuse across the food stamp program.
A recent poll found 90 percent of voters support work requirements for able-bodied adults. And a poll conducted by Politico and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found 64 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of independents overwhelmingly support work requirements.
Given the support for this “common sense” welfare reform among Republican and Democrat voters, this won’t sit well for the Congressional Democrats that will inevitably oppose welfare reform because it has Trump’s name on it.
Do you think that welfare reform is long overdue? Let us know in the comments section below!
