9,000 Maine residents lose their food stamp benefits after the governor’s new work rules went into effect. Under the new rules, non-disabled adults who do not have dependents will only be able to receive food stamp benefits for three months unless they are volunteering, working 20 hours a week, or at a job training program.
The Apostle Paul one wrote: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” (2 Thess. 3:11).
Republican Governor Paul LePage dared to begin enforcing Maine’s volunteer and work requirements for food stamp (SNAP) recipients to keep their benefits. The end result was more than 9,000 non-disabled adults getting dropped from the program.
As CNS News’ Eric Schiener reports, a Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) spokesman tells the Associated Press that 12,000 non-disabled adults were in Maine’s SNAP program before Jan. 1 – a number that dropped to 2,680 by the end of March…
The rules prevent adults, who are not disabled and do not have dependents, from receiving food stamps for more than three months unless they work at least 20 hours a week, participate in a work-training program, or meet volunteer guidelines for 24 hours out of the month.
Any one of those three minimums getting met will result in an individual to retain their SNAP food benefits.
DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew said the goal of the requirements is to encourage people to find work.
“If you’re on these programs it means you are living in poverty and so the more that we can help incentive people on that pathway to employment and self-sufficiency the better off they’re going to be,” Mayhew told the Associated Press.
Via ZeroHedge