Maine Says Able-Bodied Must 'Work' or no Food Stamps - Granite Grok

Maine Says Able-Bodied Must ‘Work’ or no Food Stamps

Obamas Legacy food stamp Go Maine…

The federal waiver that has been in place since 2010 because of the recession has been allowed to expire in the state of Maine. This allows Maine to reinstate a mandate requiring able-bodied adults who are 18 to 50 years old and have no children to work or volunteer 20 hours per week or they will be limited to three months of food stamp benefits over a three-year period.

Jean Wade, in her 50’s, said she lives modestly on disability payments. As she carried bags of food to her car one recent morning, she said that too many young people in the area, including her own son, are willing to accept food stamps and work under the table. “They sneak around doing odd jobs and getting paid,” she said. “We need to be whipped into shape.”

Paula Seeley, 51, accompanied her elderly brother-in-law to the food pantry. She said Walmart is hiring, yet many young people won’t apply for jobs. She and her husband moved to the area from Greater Boston several years ago to retire early. She also supports the requirement to work or volunteer. “It’s the ones that are able to work, and don’t work, and don’t have kids,” she said. “Go get a job!”

In Amherst, New Hampshire there are a number of young people panhandling on center islands at the entrance/exits to parking lots and along 101A–a very busy road for those unfamiliar.  These are clean, and well cared for folks, two or three young men and a young lady, posted at specific locations in Amherst, sometimes for weeks at a time.  They all claimed (on a cardboard sign) a lack of residence and anything will help.  Meanwhile, all up and down rout 101A, for months, businesses of every sort are looking for help.  Dozens of them.

If it were me I’d have been working two or three jobs, riding the bus (unless I had a car), and renting a room, until I could do better, not standing on an island hoping for handouts.  And I am over 50, not in my mid-twenties.

To be honest, I think they were paid by some group on the left to create a perception, probably to gain sympathy for a useless minimum wage increase.  Post election, I have not seen them.  Not yet.

Or maybe, possibly, they are like the young people who live near Paula Seeley, in Maine.  Products of the liberal welfare state.

Is it ironic that the left is responsible in either case?

 

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