The Great News About Lost Welfare Benefits
Tom Mooney presents this with negative language, but it takes a bit of squinting to see the down side:
The state’s improving employment picture may cost more than 1,000 people their food assistance benefits later this year, says the state Department of Human Services.
Since 1996, federal rules have limited “able-bodied adults without dependents” to three months of food assistance within a three-year period. But those rules also exempted people living in communities whose unemployment rates were higher than the average national unemployment rate. …
Able-bodied adults without dependents who are working or enrolled in a work-training program may continue receiving benefits beyond three months, Pina said.
Let’s restate the facts. “Able-bodied adults” — people who should be able to work — who do not have children and who do not have a job and refuse to enter work-training programs now can only receive food welfare for three months because the economy is doing well enough that jobs should be available. Perhaps Mr. Mooney should explain to readers why such people should have an entitlement to unlimited benefits.
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Of course, this is par for the course of all reporting on welfare. The unstated presumption is that there is never any reason not to give people anything… presumably until they enter the upper middle class.