The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 reformed welfare so that adults could be required to work in order to receive their benefits. North Carolina made some exceptions when the recession hit, but according to a new vote in the senate, the period of relaxed requirements will be coming to an end.
Gov. Pat McCrory is reinstating the requirements that will make food stamp qualification more difficult for some 1,800 adults in North Carolina. According to the laws, adults between 18 and 49 who are able-bodied and without dependent children will have three months to find a job.
If recipients are unemployed, or working fewer than 20 hours per week, they could lose their benefits entirely. They can re-apply when they demonstrate that they've maintained work that qualifies for more than 30 days.
"If jobs are available, we want to encourage work," said Sherry Bradsher, deputy secretary for North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services. "People are healthier and feel better about themselves and have a greater amount of dignity when they are working."
Numbers put out by the Obama administration continue to show that the national economy is improving. Because of this, North Carolina officials see no reason to continue to relax the policy.
I find it curious that the same right-wingers who will use the "deeper" unemplyment numbers to excoriate the Obama administration's pitiful performance on economic growth and job creation (which is not entirely specious) now cite the Obama administration's CLAIMED economic improvements as justification for additional savaging of the poor.
I think we all know what such behavior is called....;-D...
There are always going to be people who abuse a system ... there are always going to be those who have medical or emotional issues that make with difficult ... there are always going to be less jobs than those seeking then ... designing a system that gives people the skills required and the opportunities to use those skills, while preventing people from abusing the system is always going to be difficult
Everyone who is able to work should be working and not receiving benefits. I don't even know for sure how it is where I am now, but in my former state you had to qualify as to income and assets and be over 60 to not have to be working as for food stamps. I remember looking it up. I'm in Florida now and don't know but I would guess it would be as stringent as Washington.
@TM --- In a country with about 25 million unemployed/underemployed people and only about 5 million job openings to be filled, exactly WHERE should those 20 million people work?
That's not so easily answered with Authoritarian "The Bad People Must SUFFER!" platitudes....;-D...
So let's hear it, genius. Who hires the leftover 20 million people when the number of job openings is zero?
The government stopped enforcing because the bottom fell out of the world economy in 2008 and lots of people were thrown on out of work (including yours truly).
This isn't a difficult concept to understand.
There are plenty of jobs. One has to get off of their ass and actually look.
TANF and Food Stamps are two different programs.
Try again.
Yes I agree. Simply for the reason that I wonder what America would look like if ALL people were on welfare. Shudders*
As you can see from here:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/205240/us-underemployment-rate/
The unemployment/underemployment rate in the US in May 2016 was 13.7%
You can see from here that the number of employment age Americans is about 204 million
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S
204 million X 0.137 = just under 28 million people
You can see from here that the number of open full-time jobs in the USA is about 5.8 million
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm
I'm sorry that your ideological rigidity prevents you from understanding the basic math that 28 million unemployed/underemployed people - 5.8 million available jobs = 20 million+ people who HAVE NO JOBS available to them.
Now, you can continue to yammer on in your ideological bubble, or you can rejoin the Reality-Based Community. The choice is yours.
OS... that's assuming that people are on welfare because they can't find a job. There's many other reasons aside from employment.
Also you really think with a free paycheck they would want to suddenly up and go to a 9 to 5 job or even a graveyard shift if they had to? No way lol.
And, as noted by my takedown of Drue's nonsense, there are about 20 million working age people in the US for which there are NO JOBS AVAILABLE.
25 million+ unemployed/underemployed people - about 6 million available jobs = 20 million people for whom there ARE NO JOBS.
DO THE MATH!
Well according to obama the unemployment rate is WAY down, Maybe he is just lying again?
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
Here is the link. They claim the unemployment rate is 4.7
@misanthrop -- I don't know why you can't get it through your thick skull. THERE ARE NOT REMOTELY ENOUGH JOBS for all the working age adults who want/need one.
I'm not even considering people who need social welfare benefits because they are injured, sick, physically/mentally unable to work, etc.
This is a simple concept. DO THE MATH. 25 - 5 = 20. 20 is the 20 million people who need food/clothing/shelter/medical care/etc. but WHO CANNOT HAVE A JOB because THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH JOBS.
There are 3 basic solutions to that problem:
1) Let lots of people die until labor supply is brought back into par with labor demand.
2) Introduce lots of artificial inefficiency into the economy. For example, if Wal-Mart was broken up into 8 smaller companies, each mini-Wal-Mart would need a CEO, a CFO, a CIO, a director of transportation services, etc. Each of those people would need a secretary. Eight mini-Wal-Marts would need (slightly) more truck drivers than one giant Wal-Mart, etc.
Of course, less efficiency means higher prices for everyone.
3) TEH EBIL SOCIALISM
Take your pick.
I don't agree. Some people think they are too good to work lets say at McDonalds. They feel that they are overqualified to do so. Instead when times are tough you take what you can get. If you are smart and work hard you move up. You work your way up the ladder. But we have those people who feel entitled and would rather sit home and suck off the government than start at the bottom and work their way to the top!
@Drue -- You are continuing to substituted fantastical ideological butthurt for simple mathematics.
DO THE MATH.
28 million unemployed/underemployed people - 6 million available jobs = 20 million+ people for whom THERE ARE NO JOBS!
It doesn't matter if you "agree". You can disagree that 2+2 = 4...and you'd be WRONG.
Yes, on an INDIVIDUAL basis, there are behaviors/attitudes which produce better results than others. But we aren't dealing with individuals. We're dealling with a mass of 20 MILLION PEOPLE for whom THERE ARE NO JOBS.
You can continue to substitute ideological rigidity and self-serving butthurt for judicious study of discernible reality, but that behavior has a particular name.
You did not take anyone down. The unemployment rate according to the link I provided you said the unemployment rate as of May 2016 is 4.7 percent. Obama take all the credit for that. I guess either you are wrong or this administration has cooked the books?
