Gov. Paul LePage’s has found a solution to the welfare problem that is gripping our country. The Maine Republican has instated a “work-for-benefits” policy that is showing great results.
LePage implemented the policy last year with tremendous success. Under the program, able-bodied adults who have no dependents are required to either work part-time, enroll in a vocational training program or volunteer for a minimum of 24 hours per month to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for any period longer than three months.
Under this program, the number of SNAP recipients has dropped from 12,000 adults in January of 2015, to 2,680 by the end of March.
Naturally, the liberal media, and certain Democrats in the state of Maine, are none too happy about this program. They are ignoring the results, and whining about how “unfair” it is.
Barbara Chatterton, case manager at the Down East Aids Network in Machias, said, “Northern Washington County really has never come out of the recession, so there aren’t economic opportunities that there might be in other parts of the state.”
But the results of this program speak for themselves. Almost 10,000 people stopped signing up for their “free” benefits. Either they all of a sudden got a job or realized that they could no longer cheat the system — or both.
This new system is a chance to fix the broken welfare system in our country. Those who need the benefits can still get them, but they have to work for them. No longer can people simply sit at home and collect taxpayer money.
Mary Mayhew, commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, put it bluntly (H/TBizPac Review).
“If you’re on these programs it means you are living in poverty and so the more that we can help incentivize people on that pathway to employment and self-sufficiency the better off they’re going to be.”
We need to spread this plan to all 50 states. Welfare benefits and other government entitlement programs take up almost 50 percent of our federal budget and are only projected to grow in the next few years.
If all states would simply reinstate the federal welfare work requirements as did Maine, imagine what the savings would look like.
http://conservativetribune.com/governor-thousands-off-welfare/
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