A Rebirth Of Self-Reliance? Food Stamp, Welfare, Medicaid, Disability Rolls All Dropping Under Trump
Welfare: Earlier this month, the government reported that enrollment in food stamps plunged by nearly 600,000 in one month. Is this part of a broader trend toward greater self-reliance?
The Department of Agriculture, which runs the food stamp program — officially called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — reports that enrollment in January was 40.7 million, the lowest it's been since May 2010.
In the months since President Trump has been in office, the number of people collecting food stamps plunged by nearly 2 million.
The same is true for welfare. Enrollment in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program dropped 12% last year, to reach 2.3 million.
Better still, the number of workers on Social Security Disability Insurance was down to 8.6 million in March — a decline of more than 100,000 since January 2017, and the lowest level since February 2012.
So far this year, disability applications have averaged 179,000 a month, compared with more than 193,000 a month in 2016. And the number of people dropping off disability rolls is up.
Medicaid Enrollment Drops
Even enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP — the health care program for the poor and children — dropped by almost a million in 2017, to 74 million. In contrast, enrollment surged by more than 2 million in 2016. (Medicaid's rolls could climb gain if additional states decide to expand the program under ObamaCare.)
In other words, millions of people are now free from at least some of their dependence on federal benefit programs.
Except for Medicaid, these trends have been in place for years, as the growing economy produced the jobs and added income needed to move people toward greater self-sufficiency.
This is obviously good news.
Yet all too often, rising enrollment is the metric of success used by advocates. Which helps explain the hostility toward adding work requirements to receive certain federal benefits.
Work For Benefits
ObamaCare, for example, allowed able-bodied childless adults — with incomes above the poverty line — to enroll in Medicaid in expansion states. Because these states are now picking up a bigger share of the expansion costs, many are looking to impose work requirements to stay on the program. There's also a push to add work requirements for food stamps.
That may seem heartless. But keep in mind that most of these programs have the word "temporary" right in their titles. They were never envisioned as permanent means of support, but a way to cover over rough patches.
When you look at it that way, the best measure of success for any poverty programs is for enrollment to keep trending toward zero.
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We might hurry the ridding ourselves of the poor along by simply eating them.
If you care to curtail poverty then do so through education and training, not by reducing subsidies to those truly in need. Many of those that receive Government assistance are working poor that simply cannot make ends meet in todays economy.
As long as someone is doing their best (everyone's best is different), the question should be why would you not help.
A side effect of steadily decreasing unemployment rates finally stalled at 4.1% for 6 months - the more people work, the less eligible they are for benefits.
It doesn't seem to be a mystery...
people are working and are coming off the rolls......wonderful......we're all working toward that
meanwhile:
the funds that were used for social welfare programs have been reassigned, not to lowering the debt, but to massively increasing corporate welfare.....now the deficit becomes even bigger.....real fiscal responsibility.
My daughter had to turn down a promotion with a $10/hr pay increase that her employer really wanted to give her, because it would have gotten her son kicked off of Medicaid. He just had his fourth and hopefully last open heart surgery. The deductibles, copays, and medications would have instantly bankrupted her. There are all kinds of reasons why people are poor, but the right just wants you to think the only reason is that they are lazy and entitled. They also are very concerned about making sure that zygotes turn into babies, but once they are babies they couldn’t care less about their welfare.
Is there any reason you and the rest of your family can’t chip in and help pay for the bills? I’m chipping in to pay for a portion of my great aunts nursing home care.
Many families now feel it is easier to vote for free crap and stick on it the backs of others than to take responsibility for their kinfolk.
Well, let’s see - just one of his many medications costs $2,500 per month - for life. The surgeries are at about 3 million dollars thus far, and if you guys had your way he would be denied any coverage in the private market due to pre-existing conditions. What’s the next trick up your sleeve? Maybe some Christian charity will cut them a check so that the uber rich can finally upgrade their yachts?
Obviously, there is more to the story.
Also it gets ingrained in the culture of the leftist families that they feel others should pay their bills. They they never develop the understanding that they are responsible for the well-being of themselves and their families. This is part of the reason for multigenerational poverty and welfare dependency.
We get it Dean, just let him die already right?
What a fucking moronic thing to say. Oh wait, it’s bf - expected.
If he was my grandkid I’d buy him some insurance. Thanks to the Republicans increase in the gift tax exemption I could do it without be penalized by the government for doing it.
Just 'leftist' families Dean? If you are talking about the welfare culture, are you suggesting that all or nearly all of these families are 'leftist'? How DO welfare families break down politically? I don't know, just asking the question. I'll never forget the post from a hard working Democrat whose Republican neighbors on welfare would call a 'socialist.' Righties don't have any problem with government handouts at all, as long as they're not going to the people they don't like.
What a great gift! Deductibles, copays, and pharmacy bills that are well above her salary are her problem then, right? I don’t even know why I brought it up, as the expectation of reason and understanding of complex subjects on this forum is exceedingly low.
Holy Christ - now you are comparing heart babies to ‘everyone else’. Has everyone else reached 3 million dollars in medical care by the age of two, genius?
and it could be a hell of a lot better
I made no comparison other than millions of people on insurance policies deal with deductibles and copays every day.
That is a part of insurance.
Those millions of people are like I am, going to the doctor as little as possible. I once went five years without a single doctor visit. My grandson’s daycare wouldn’t even accept him unless a private nurse visits the daycare every single day, to administer the numerous medications he is on in their correct dosages. That is fully covered by Medicaid.
I’m on several medications myself, but they are standard pharmaceuticals that cost pennies. His most expensive one is $2,500/mo, because it is such a rarely prescribed medication. You keep making comparisons of apples and baseballs.
Gee, and Democrats have been championing Obamacare for at least 7 years now. Doesn't sound so rosy now that YOU and YOUR family is affected, now does it?
And there you go AGAIN, comparing uniquely special cases to the herd. How is MY family affected, exactly? I have normal health, and normal American style health insurance. So what does ObamaCare have to do with this conversation? Absolutely nothing - but when your argument has nothing of substance to back it up, the conservative way to deal with it is to insert the word “Obama” somehow. Your ODS is palpable.
The biggest, most glaring mistake you all make is drawing the idiotic conclusion that people who stay above water by virtue of government assistance actually like the position they are in. Listening to you, one would think my daughter is happy about turning down a promotion that any normal employee would rightly consider to be life changing. After running the numbers, she smartly discovered that losing Medicaid for a child such as hers would lead to an avalanche of expenses that would quickly overwhelm her family and eventually lead to eviction, bankruptcy, and an inability to provide the medications and doctor visits that keep her son alive. Imagine being in that position, having to deal with letting a less qualified person becoming your manager, and hearing some asshole insinuate that you are nothing but a lazy taker.
It’s Sunday - why don’t you just go to church and share your views with likeminded Christians.
Now that's a good question. There are no pre-existing conditions today. At least the family could pay what premiums the insurance policy cost and then the insurance policy would pay all those costs at the rate everyone else has to pay them. The reason for medicaid is because medicaid pays everything, leaving the insured no expenses at all.
I sympathize with the situation Hal's grandson has to deal with, but $10 an hour raise is another $20,000 a year. Why should other American's pay for your grandson's medicine and operations when she could afford to pay for an insurance policy of her own with that kind of extra income. At least the family could chip in to help her out and she would have the same coverage we all have.
And for those of you sitting in judgment - would private insurance cover that? I have my doubts. If they wouldn't, and Hal's daughter were left unable to find a daycare who would accept her son, what then? Does she quit her job entirely to stay home with him? Who supports them after that? This way, yes, she is on Medicaid. But she is working. Contributing.
I frequently hear folks say they don't mind giving a hand up to those who truly need it, and who try to support themselves. Well, here we have someone doing that, and she gets torn down, anyway.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Why should other American's pay for your grandson's medicine and operations when she could afford to pay for an insurance policy of her own with that kind of extra income.
I guess you just don’t get it. Let me spell it out for you. Imagine you are living at the poverty line, and you have a normal, healthy child. You receive a promotion, buy health insurance for your family, and your social and financial standing subsequently improves, while your healthy child is not going to dozens of co-pay doctor appointments per year, doesn’t require hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of meds every month, and doesn’t cause you to reach your $6,000 deductible every year. You don’t even have to periodically take a month off of work unpaid to stay with your child in the hospital, while you sleep at the Ronald McDonald House, because your child is healthy. A healthy child with insurance is not the financial equivalent of a special needs child with insurance.
You've been trying to explain this all day but some here are either too stupid or too heartless to understand the simple facts of your daughter's situation. You might be more productive banging your head against the wall.
Medicaid is very important to many people and it should be available for cases like yours.
What you are describing is exactly what is wrong with these govt programs. They incitivize people to take jobs that pay less or not work at all. And for what it's worth most conservatives want to make medicine costs more competitive so they don't cost so much in the first place.
Lol. Yeah, you guys are doing a bang up job at controlling healthcare costs. Maybe she should have taken the job, and went bankrupt while waiting for Donald Trump to solve healthcare. Any day now healthcare is going to cost just a tiny fraction of what it once was - trust him folks. Who knew healthcare in the US could be so complicated?
Would you prefer a system like in Great Britiain where parents aren't even allowed to try to save their kids even if somebody else is willing to pay for the treatment?
So you think she didn’t do her research? Lol, she should have consulted you huh? One major difference between Medicaid and private health insurance is that Medicaid does not have the crushing deductibles, copays, and drug costs that the private insurance industry dumps onto the customer. If you are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, then you are already struggling to make rent and feed your family. Between myself and her grandparents, we have stepped in many times to help make ends meet, and we do not complain about it. However, it would be untenable for her to depend on us to funnel ten times what we already do to try and afford the twenty or so medications he is on and the constant copays she would endure with his many many doctor visits. She would probably already have reached a lifetime cap on insurance payout by now. Taking that promotion would have been the biggest mistake she ever made, which would have done nothing but saddle her with a bankruptcy and put her in the exact same position she is already in.
Keep insinuating how lazy she is and what a drag on the country and important people like yourself that she is though. It’s what you guys do best.
Children in Britain with treatable but expensive conditions like his are taken care of.
Skirting the CoC [ph] Take your sanctimonious bullshit elsewhere. She’s been making barely above minimum wage as a customer service rep in a cable company for years, which is the epitome of thankless jobs. The promotion to management would have nearly doubled her salary. Meanwhile, you want to compare her to yourself - who has repeatedly bragged here about how wealthy you are. What a joke.
Let it go. Some don't want to acknowledge that there are, sometimes, circumstances that we don't understand. One scenario does not fit all.
I just pray that this little one gets the care needed to have a good life.
One time I remember one of you guys here bragging about how well your earnings had multiplied with your various career moves. Maybe it wasn’t you, but whoever it was said that they took one job that resulted in a $40k bump in salary. Yeah, I pay attention to that stuff. It comes in handy when you guys try to compare yourselves to people who actually do struggle to get by.
I appreciate that mag. Even though we have wildly different ideologies and opinions, have been very supportive of his circumstances.
I don’t blame your daughter for doing what she did. I blame the government for setting up this situation that has so many choosing government dependency and poverty over self-reliance and the long hard road of climbing the ladder to financial success. This is how the politicians buy votes using taxpayer money.
Funny - you’ve got no blame to spread around for a for-profit industry that charges $20 for an aspirin, and $150 for a bag of saline, just because they can? You would sell out your own mother if it meant getting closer to being able to drown the government in a bathtub.
Stories like this one are all over the Internet now:
Tell that to Alfies parents
Alfie e
I have seldom seen as much heartlessness as has been displayed on this thread.
I feel the same way. They do not get it at all. BUT if it was their family they would expect everyone to feel pity for them.
Isn't this whole thread a broad brush of negativity about those who need assistance to stay alive?
No more than the broad brush of negativity towards those that feel it should be the individuals responsibility and not the governments.
I think I stated the 'whole thread". Do not pigeon hole me.
Then the answer to your question is no. I see lots of positive things being said here.
Positive because they coincide your believe system? Or positive because they are good for the hard working citizens of this country? I know my daughter has a debilitating chronic disease. She works & most everything she earns pays for her insurance premium to cover her $10,000 bi monthly treatment. She is 30 and lives at home because all of her money goes to insurance. The saddest thing of all is that if they pull the pre-existing condition exemption she will be shit out of luck & will die. How dies that all make you feel? Do you even care that a woman working just to stay alive is a thing in this "GREAT AMERICAN COUNTRY"? Is that a problem to you at all?
Never mind - you all worry only about right & left - you could care less about REAL people like Yuk Phoo's grasndson and my daughter.
For Profit Health Insurance companies are so crooked and abuse their power and near monopoly position that they need to be replaced.
I would rather pay and deal with a government program than the arrogant overpaid crooks we have to put up with now
California government and insurance companies are both bad and out of control
First of all, my sympathy and hope that those of you who have posted about members of your family having conditions so severe as to potentially bankrupt them, find a way to have the healthcare your loved ones need and they are cured.
The point that I want to make, however, is that the discussion on this thread should be about our out of control health care system and the outrageous costs within the system. As long as we encourage a privatized system that allows unlimited growth of medical and pharmaceutical costs, the problems we're reading about here will just get worse.
No matter what our insurance is or isn't, we shouldn't have a two day hospital stay costing the individual or insurance company 35 thousand dollars. No matter how many heart surgeries a two year old needs, he should never have to have run up 3 million dollars in medical expenses. Those costs are outrageous. Someone or some group of someones is getting very rich off the suffering of others.
We can talk about personal responsibility all we want, but we always will need some sort of public option and some governmental controls over the gouging that occurs in the healthcare industry. This is a matter of humanity and shouldn't be a conservative vs. liberal issue.
I agree with everything you said. It is outrageous and it is not going to end.
Thank you.