The GOP Wants To Open the American Dream to the Poor, By Taking Away Their Food
JUNE 11, 2018
By cutting food stamps and instituting work-for-food requirements, Republicans say they are creating a land of opportunity.
BY JOEL BLEIFUSS
Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue fears the poor are addicted to free food. “Long-term dependency has never been part of the American dream,” he wrote in an April 16 Fox News op-ed. “USDA’s goal is to help individuals and families move from SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka food stamps] back to the workforce as the best long-term solution to poverty.”
That is also the goal of the 2018 Farm Bill that GOP members of the House Agriculture Committee sent to the full House on April 12. The bill’s “Workforce Solutions” provision would mandate that millions of people on SNAP work for their benefits. In exchange for about $150 to $185 a month in SNAP dollars, recipients would be required to spend 20 hours a week working a paid job, undergoing job training or participating in a government work program, such as picking up trash along highways. People who are disabled, pregnant, under 18 or over 59, or caretakers of children under 6 or incapacitated adults would be exempted. All others who fail to get with the program would be banned from food aid.
The Congressional Budget Office calculates that from 2019 to 2028, the new bureaucracy to administer this work-to eat initiative will cost $7.7 billion, a figure offset by a projected $9.2 billion reduction in SNAP benefits.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill’s work requirements “would likely do substantially more harm than good, fueling increases in hunger and poverty” and “leave substantial numbers of low-income people with various barriers to employment—such as very limited skills or mental health issues like depression—with neither earnings nor food assistance.”
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http://inthesetimes.com/article/21121/GOP-poor-food-stamps-work-republicans
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