Food stamps: Trump administration moves to tighten SNAP work requirements

[Applewood]

Food stamps: Trump administration moves to tighten SNAP work requirements

...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday proposed a rule that would restrict the ability of states to exempt work-eligible adults from having to obtain steady employment to receive food stamps.

...

Currently, able-bodied adults ages 18-49 without children are required to work 20 hours a week to maintain their SNAP benefits. The House bill would have raised the age of recipients subject to work requirements from 49 to 59 and required parents with children older than 6 to work or participate in job training. The House measure also sought to limit circumstances under which families that qualify for other poverty programs can automatically be eligible for SNAP.

None of those measures made it into the final farm bill despite Trump's endorsement. Now the administration is using regulatory rulemaking to try to scale back the SNAP program.

Excerpt.  Read more at:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-food-stamps-snap-work-requirements-20181220-story.html

[Applewood]

This is good, especially since Pelosi and the Democrats are howling over it.

But I remember back in the 90s when "welfare reform" passed.  A local supermarket hired three women who were forced to work for their benefits.  One woman in particular was the surliest person I ever met. I had 11 items and every checkout lane was packed except the express lane which had a limit of 10 items and no one in line.  The express checkout was manned by Miz Surly who was complaining to everyone who would listen how her feet hurt, she missed her kids, blah, blah, blah.  I thought since she wasn't waiting on anyone else, she would be willing to overlook that I had one more item than the limit and ring up my order.

Oh no.  She started shouting at me that I was over the limit.  I tried to politely ask her to ring up the order anyway, but then she really got nasty.  The manager came over and asked what was the problem.  When I explained the situation, the manager ordered Miz Surly to check out the order. 

I noticed that within a week, Miz Surly was no longer employed by the supermarket.

[jmyrlefuller]

I get the point of this, but you know that corporations are exploiting this to pay their employees less. Go to most of the major retail chains; the typical work week is between 20 and 29 hours, 20 so they qualify for SNAP, 29 to avoid Obamacare mandates. When they talk about corporate welfare, this is one way it's done.

[Hoodat]

My only beef with this is that they never save money.  With tighter restrictions, one would figure that they pay out less, and at the end of the year they would have money left over to put back in the Treasury to help pay for next year's spending.  But that never happens.  Never.  The money ends up getting spent on something else (as long as that 'something else's isn't a wall).