USDA Is Switching Up Implementing​ Work Requirments Allowing Nearly 700,000 To Lose Their Food Stamps

I understand people should have to work if they are able to. The number of single mothers/fathers around the U.S. that don’t have any support, or the mentally ill patient with sever OCD and anxiety orders it’s not easy for them. Unfortunately they can’t work and they make up a large portion of the population people like to forget about.

I hope it doesn’t affect the people that really need assistance. For the people that just freeload off the government and are fully cable of work, but are okay with just getting by, they are the ones this new law should affect.

On Wednesday the Trump administration formalized work requirements for the people receiving food stamps. A move that is going to see hundreds of thousands of people lose their benefits. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program a.k.a. SNAP has just changed the lives of nearly 700,000 individuals who don’t know where their next meal is coming from.

The New SNAP Program

The rule will come into effect April 1, 2020. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue explained it this way to reporters.

“We’re taking action to reform our SNAP program in order to restore the dignity of work to a sizable segment of our population and be respectful of the taxpayers who fund the program. Americans are generous people who believe it is their responsibility to help their fellow citizens when they encounter a difficult stretch. That’s the commitment behind SNAP, but, like other welfare programs, it was never intended to be a way of life.”

The new USDA rule change is going to affect individuals between the ages of 18-49 who are childless and not disabled. Now under the new rule these people must work at least 20 hrs per week for more than three months over a span of 36 months. Only then will they be able to receive food stamps. States with crazy high unemployment rates have waivers created into the program.

The new work requirement rule is stating over the next five years the government will save $5.5 billion dollars.

The USDA said they found 2.9 million people on SNAP that were able-bodied and had no dependents. 2.1 million of those people were not working.

We shall see America this sounds like a fair plan, as long as they help the people who can work find job security. If that doesn’t happen their plan to reduce poverty could back fire and just make the poverty levels even worse.

The numbers are a little off but it gives you an idea of what states are going to be affected.

(Cover photo courtesy of New York Post, second photo courtesy of Mathematics, source NBC)