New Hampshire Democrats want to repeal the work requirement for expanded Medicaid. The current law requires able-bodied adults to work at least part-time if they wish to participate.
This means that if you are capable of work, you should. It’s good for everyone. People who are able and work – and New Hampshire has a labor shortage – are significantly more likely to come off taxpayer-funded welfare programs.
It works everywhere it has been tried.
The most recent data comes to us out of Arkansas.
Starting in January 2016, Able-bodied, childless adults, would be expected to work part-time if they wanted to stay on food stamps. Here’s what happened.
As soon as the requirement was in place, childless adults started dropping off the rolls. Within three months, more than 8,000 had left the food stamp program. And within a year, enrollment dropped by a whopping 70 percent.
I’d argue that the work requirement did more to help people than not. It gave able-bodied adults an incentive to work. With work comes income, a feeling that you are needed. An opportunity to contribute. You earn your financial independence. Work skills open up avenues for higher paying jobs and more economic freedom.
It also frees up resources at the state level previously allocated to prop up the lifestyles of people who could be working.
Work requirements work for everyone, except Democrats, whose motives should be questioned. Why are you working so hard to make people wards of the state? A ‘position’ whose only advancement opportunities come at the hands of the Democrats who convinced you to remain trapped in a subsistence lifestyle?