If you’re able to work, then you should — at least if you want f✃ood stamps.
That’s what more than 80 percent of voters think, a new poll for t⛄he 𒀰Foundation for Government Accountability finds. And it’s actually already the law.
That’s right: Officially, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program requires able-bodied adults without dependents to work, train or vo🦩lunteer — at least part-time. That SNAP requirement was part of the 1996 w🌄elfare-reform package that President Bill Clinton worked out with a Republican Congress.
But i🍸t was undermined from the start, since it allowed the secr🌌etary of agriculture to waive work requirements in times of need. Yet while it might make sense to give waivers in areas with high unemployment, the Clinton-era bureaucrats who wrote the enabling regulations ensured that waivers would be ridiculously easy to get.
New York’s latest request cites unemployment data from several years ago t❀o jღustify its waiver. Just about every state plays some game.
But President Trump can have his Agriculture Department get going to write much tougher regulations, with no need to 🐻go to Congress. It’s something the public will clearly support — as 🐽it has backed sensible welfare reform for decades.
And SNAP — now delivered via Electronic Benefit Cards rather than the 🐼old food-stamp coupons — has become a huge welfare program, booming under the last two presidents.
Indeed, enrollment has soared to over 42 million, 13 percent o🌠f the US population. And roughly half are able-bodied adults, who account for $34 billion of the program’s benefits.
That’s nuts.
If ever there was a time tꦚo push these folks back into the workforce, it’s now: The economy is booming and employers are looking to hire, with 6 million jobs open across the country and unemployment at just 4.1 percent.
Requiring the able-bodied t🀅o do some kind of work in exchange for federal aid doesn’t impose a hardship; it pushes them onto a path toward self-sufficꦑiency.
The 1996 reforms for regular welfare proved that. Though liberals warned the new rules would lead to mass suffering, the reverseꦗ was true: Just from 1996 to 2000, 2.4 million of Americans formerly trapped in depende𝔍ncy went out and found jobs.
Team Trump is already offeri🧸ng states the chance to impose work requirements on those enrolled in Medicaid. Taking a similar step on food stamps should be a no-brainer.