Thanks... Do you have a link?? I would like to see what the break down is.
Thousands dropped from food stamps due to work requirements
- Thread starter Bill
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Thanks... Do you have a link?? I would like to see what the break down is.
Thousands dropped from food stamps due to work requirements
Thousands dropped from food stamps due to work requirements
ATLANTA-NEWS
By Craig Schneider - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
76
Georgia EBT card
Posted: 3:12 p.m. Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Thousands of Georgians have lost their food stamps after the state gave them an ultimatum: Get a job or lose your benefits.
Is that good news or bad news? Depends who you talk to. Placing work requirements on food stamps has proven controversial across the country, with opinions often divided along political lines.
Georgia has been rolling out work requirements for food stamp recipients for over a year. The latest round affected some 12,000 people in 21 counties, several in metro Atlanta, who are considered able-bodied without children.
When the April 1 deadline came around for them to find work, more than half — 7,251 — were dropped from the program, according to state figures released this week. Essentially, the number of recipients spiraled down from 11,779 to 4,528, or a drop of 62 percent.
Views on the work mandate vary widely, and intensely. People on the political right see the requirement as a nudge to those who languish on public benefits. But those on the left believe many people who the state deems able-bodied really cannot hold a job due to physical or mental limitations. And they worry these people will suffer without the assistance.
State officials say they plan to expand the work requirements to all 159 counties by 2019, with another 60 coming on board next year.
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Bobby Cagle, director of the state Division of Family and Children Services, has said, “The greater good is people being employed, being productive and contributing to the state.”
The two political sides differ even in their view of the people in this category, who the state identifies as able-bodied adults without dependents or ABAWDs.
+KENT D. JOHNSON / AJC
DFCS Director Bobby Cagle said, “The greater good is people being employed, being productive and contributing to the state.” (photo: Kent ... Read More
Brandon Hanick of the progressive activist group Better Georgia believes this population is filled with people with mental health impairments, limited education and borderline physical handicaps. They often lack the wherewithal to prove to a state bureaucracy their inability to meet the work requirements, he said.
“It’s cruel,” Hanick said of the work requirements. “We’re talking about one of the most basic needs — the need for food.”
But state Rep. Greg Morris, a Republican from Vidalia, said the precipitous drop in recipients shows the mandate is working. He believes many of these food stamp recipients have become complacent, if not lazy, about finding a job.
“This is about protecting taxpayer dollars from abuse, and taking people off the cycle of dependency,” Morris said. The big drop in numbers, he added, “shows how tax dollars are abused when it comes to entitlements.”
Food stamps come from federal dollars, but the program here is managed by DFCS. Some 1.6 million Georgians receive food stamps.
The number of food stamp recipients deemed able-bodied and without children in Georgia has dropped from 111,000 to 89,500 in a year’s time. That is an uncommon reduction of 21,500 people or 19 percent. Officials say they have no firm reason for the sharp decrease, though they suspect a statewide review of this population may have played a role.
The state began implementing the work requirements in 2016 with Cobb, Gwinnett and Hall counties. The state gave recipients there three months to find a job or training program or lose their benefits. A year later, the number of able-bodied, childless adults in those counties diminished 75 percent from 6,102 to 1,490, according to DFCS figures. The state selects counties with relatively low unemployment rates for the work requirements.
But state officials acknowledge the system initially had a problem in classifying who is able-bodied. They discovered that hundreds of people who the state had classified as able-bodied in Cobb, Gwinnett and Hall were actually unable to work. Some lost their food stamps when the work requirements began. Staff have since received additional training.
Georgia’s expansion of the work requirements comes as conservatives nationally push for more welfare-to-work initiatives. All but a handful of states employ work requirements. The mandate is a federal policy, implemented during the welfare reform of the nineties but put on hold during the Great Recession.
President Donald Trump’s new budget plan proposed to cut $192 billion from food stamps over a decade.
What happens to the people dropped from food stamps?
The agency does not track individuals once they leave the program. Officials noted that some may have been reclassified as handicapped. They would still be receiving food stamps but not be required to work. Others may have obtained jobs.
Here again, views on what happens to these people often splits along political affiliations.
Benita Dodd, vice president of the fiscally conservative Georgia Public Policy Foundation, said she believes the work mandate is pushing many into jobs.
“It does show that if you give people an incentive to help themselves, they can become productive citizens,” she said.
But Melissa Johnson, a senior policy analyst with the left-leaning Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, has more dire concerns. Food stamps, often the first government assistance sought by people in hard times, are “such a meager benefit,” she said, adding that the average benefit is $129 a month in Georgia.
“I believe these time limits are harmful, and they are likely to lead to more hunger and hardship,” Johnson said.
DFCS officials say they have repeatedly reached out to these recipients, offering them help with job searches and training. The agency has a $505,706 contract with Goodwill of North Georgia to help people get training and connections to employers.
“The agency has many services to offer (them), but many have chosen not to respond to multiple notices,” said DFCS spokeswoman Mary Beth Lukich.
Asshole politicians.
How unfair making someone work for a living.
As a requirement for benefits I would have them clean up the garbage and trash on the property they own or rent. That would be a good start.
The crying will be you faggot boy when you get your "reward" for what you chose to be.
Typical leftwing argument. Always blaming something else other than the person making the decision that produced their poor results in life.
Others are not my responsibility. That is your weakness, thinking people shouldn't do for themselves.
It's OK. God, the Father, spoke on it and you fear what will happen to you because you choose to be a dick sucking, inferior faggot.
Chapter and verse where Jesus said it was OK?
Trying to lessen your fear isn't working, faggot boy.
Your superior as spoken, boy.
People do not spend all their time carping about pay. Read Mazlow. The fact is our tax laws are doing a lot to intensify the wealth gap. The rich escape taxes and hide their wealth because their campaign donations and lobbying power allow it. A huge wealth gap causes problems in a society. Ours is worse than it was during the Gilded Age.
You swallow the concept that the wealthy are rich because they are better people and deserve it. For new rich, it takes a lot of luck. But most on top are generational rich who use the power of money to carve out more breaks and give them more money.
Like Teddy Roosevelt said when he started the inheritance tax, Nobody begrudges a person getting rich if he has a great idea and implements it. However, money passed on through generations is different in kind. It is used to wield power, make laws and pick politicians. Think Citizens United was implemented to help the masses? Think Trump's tax cut that went 85 percent to the top 1 percent was supposed to help the middle class and poor? Oh yeah, Trump said it would, so rightys believe it. Like nearly everything he says, is not true.
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Are you saying that the money making someone rich because he/she "has a great idea and implements it" should go to someone of your choosing rather than people chosen by the one having and implementing that great idea when he/she dies?
Stop begging for someone else's money, boy. It's embarrassing for you.
Yes. They should not pass it all to the next generations creating a plutocracy. Teddy figured out the dangers and acted to protect democracy. That kind of thinking is many levels above your meager abilities. He did not want a group of super-rich to run the country. He knew they would act in their own benefit. They are a danger to the American experiment.
Nobody has suggested bankrupting the wealthy. The first 11 million they have is exempt from the inheritance tax. The rest is on a sliding scale of taxation. The kids are not being cheated for their win in the birth lottery.
Into the Night
Verified User
Some do. Perhaps you are unaware of the $15/hr movement.
There is no such thing as a 'wealth gap'.
No, they don't!
They can't.
Doesn't help a bit, dude. BTW, did you know there are lobbyists for the poor as well?
No such thing.
Can't. There is no such thing. Theft of wealth, such you are advocating, causes problems in society.
Void argument fallacy. Apparently you don't like the 'good times', bubble that it was.
Yes I do. Brilliant observation. They created that wealth. They worked for it. They deserve it.
Nope, mostly it takes initiative and drive.
WRONG. Bill Gates did not inherit Microsoft. He created wealth. Same with Mark Zuckerberg. He did not inherit Facebook. Same with Jeff Bezos. He did not inherit Amazon. I did not inherit my company either. I built it myself.
So why should the government inherit my wealth? Why don't I get to decide who inherits my wealth?
A dollar is a dollar.
Wealth doesn't make laws. Representatives do. Representatives are elected by the people or by the States (which are people). That includes everyone, regardless of their wealth.
No. I think they were founded to help themselves.
A lie. The changes in the IRS code is proof of your lie.
It did. It still is. Unemployement is now at the lowest rate since the early sixties. The middle class and the poor are creating wealth for themselves.
A lie. He never said any such thing.
Bulverism fallacy, and a lie.
Into the Night
Verified User
Into the Night
Verified User
The United States is organized as a federated republic, not a plutocracy. It has constitutions.
The United States is organized as a federated republic, not a democracy. There currently is no democracy surviving anywhere on Earth.
Insult fallacy. You are advocating Marxism. You desire to overthrow the United States and install an oligarchy.
They do not run the country.
Of course they do. So do you. So what?
WRONG. The United States is organized as a federated republic. It has constitutions.
You have. It is also the logical conclusion of your position.
YOU are not a dictator. YOU don't get to steal the wealth of others to reduce it to an 'acceptable' level.
Such taxation is already in place. Such sliding scales are illegal. The Constitution states that taxation must be uniform across everyone.
Stealing wealth is theft, dude.
your post was a total zero.
If he had any guts, he's admit it.
Your value to society is a total zero. Stop begging for other people's money, get off your lazy ass, and earn a living, boy.
It's clear you're nothing more than a worthless beggar incapable of earning his own way.
There's absolutely nothing dangerous about those earning something giving to those of their own choosing. There is a danger when a begging, valueless, piece of shit like you thinks it should somehow go to those of your choosing instead of the ones chosen by the person to whom the wealth belonged.
There is no birth lottery. If you believe there is, it's clear you lost. In other words, you're a born loser that continues to live like what he was born.
gfm7175
Mega MAGA
Some do, some don't. I personally don't make all that much money, but I don't complain about it either. I am satisfied with the little that I have been blessed with. If I ever want to make more money sometime in the future, then I will gain more knowledge and increase my value.
Let's assume that all of what you said here was correct... (it's not)
Why would you want to further increase the size of federal government, further centralizing power, which makes it even more prone to the "paybacks" and "lobbying" that you are expressing distaste for?
Wouldn't a much smaller federal government (as our constitution allows for) be much less prone to these "payback" and "lobbying" efforts, as governmental power would be much more spread out instead of being so centralized?
There is no wealth gap, thus, there is no problem. Theft of other people's wealth IS a problem, however...
There are a plethora of reasons as to why a person might be rich. For the most part, it has to do with actually putting in the effort and time. But, no matter the reasons, it is not your money; it is their money. You have no right to their money.
If you want more money, then make yourself more valuable. Not everybody is capable of everything that everybody else is capable of, as we are all differing individuals. Some are capable of playing professional sports, while others are not. Some have gifted singing voices, while others do not. Yet, we all have opportunities to make ourselves more valuable and to contribute our skills to whatever one might consider to be the "greater good" in their life. For me, it is my LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. He has blessed me with certain abilities, and I am finding ways to make use of them to serve his will.
...and knowledge and skill of some sort... mixed with actually putting in the effort and time, like I mentioned above...
Many of them actually built their own wealth. Think of companies such as Facebook and Amazon... even Microsoft...
Why should you or anyone else get to dictate what someone else wishes to do with their money?
No. So?
It did, though. Many people had less of their money stolen from them.
I get it, you don't like Trump.
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