People love hearing the stories of hard workers who lifted themselves up by their bootstraps and pursued the American dream. Whether it’s people wanting a fresh start in life or a proverbial rags-to-riches story of our greatest entrepreneurs, these stories are woven into our national identity and an ideal toward which we all strive.
Despite this common drive for success, we continue to allow millions of people to languish on welfare. For many who want to rise out of dependency, we’ve made it too easy for them to remain trapped. And for those who have gotten too comfortable or have defrauded our programs, we’ve made it easy to go unchecked. Thankfully, this grim outlook on welfare is coming to an end.
Since the historic 1996 welfare reform, we’ve required able-bodied adults on welfare to work, train, or volunteer at least part time as a condition of receiving food stamps. We’ve seen incredible success for people in states such as Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida, who implemented these requirements, but that hasn’t stopped a steady drumbeat of activists and bureaucrats in past administrations working to undermine these requirements and create loopholes that allow people to stay on welfare indefinitely with no expectation they’ll try to move off.
With Wednesday’s long-awaited release of their final rule on food stamp work requirements, the Department of Agriculture is better upholding the original intent of the 1996 law. By so doing, the administration has reaffirmed its commitment to helping millions of men and women break free of the cycle of dependency and get on the road to independence.
The final rule cracks down on states abusing these waivers and pushes them to implement work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents. The importance of this moment cannot be understated.
Work requirements have reshaped lives in several states that have enforced them, reducing dependency and increasing employment, while ensuring benefits are available to those who truly need them. The announcement by the Trump administration is a bold, positive move that helps people across the country pursue employment and experience the dignity and independence that comes from work. With 7 million open jobs, there is no better time than now for this type of action.
Notably, this final rule takes major steps to close certain loopholes that states have exploited to prevent enforcing these requirements and hindered many people’s moves from welfare to work. There are millions of able-bodied adults dependent on food stamps who do not work at all. In a booming economy with near-historic low unemployment, the number of waivers from work requirements should be decreasing as the number of local jobs increases. But the abuses have gotten worse over the last several years.
Despite a half-percent drop in unemployment in Ohio between fiscal years 2017 and 2019, the number of counties in which the state waived work requirements increased from 16 to 38. Similarly, Georgia waived 66 counties from the work requirement in 2018 and just recently was approved for another extension for 114 counties, despite the state unemployment rate dropping to a low 3.4% in October.
These waivers were supposed to be temporary and only for areas with objectively high unemployment rates and a clearly demonstrated lack of jobs, not areas with record-low unemployment. Today’s rule means these waivers will be used more sparingly, and that states will be able to move people off the sidelines into the millions of open jobs across the country.
With good news comes the cavalcade of predictable, tired arguments of how this supposedly heartless decision will result in widespread hunger and millions being kicked off the benefits they need to survive.
Ignoring the baseless claims that this requirement in any way hurts the elderly, children, or people with disabilities, there’s a deeper, disappointing trend toward cynicism rooted in low expectations for able-bodied adults on welfare — a cynicism thankfully not shared by the Trump administration.
Because what could be more heartless than trapping generations of people in a cycle of dependency? Where is the dignity in government discouraging work and community involvement? How is it compassionate to allow people to languish on the sidelines when they could be working their way toward a better life for themselves and their families?
For the millions of able-bodied adults on welfare, food stamps too often become a dead end built by government loopholes. Work requirements work and help families thrive, not just survive. This reform is a big step forward out of welfare dependency for millions who will be placed on the path toward achieving the American dream.
Robin Walker is the senior director of federal affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
