Blue cities and states are fighting welfare reform by claiming that expecting food stamp recipients to look for work is unfair because there are no jobs.
A coalition of 14 states and two major cities filed a lawsuit Thursday in an attempt to block the Trump administration from eliminating food stamp benefits for hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans.
The administration’s new rules will restrict the ability of states to provide food stamps to jobless residents. Instead, “able-bodied” Americans who are not caring for a child less than 6 years old will be eligible for food stamps only if they’re employed or enrolled in a vocational training program.
“The waivers that the Rule curtails are critical to ensuring access to food for low-income people who live in areas with limited employment opportunities,” said the complaint filed in federal court by the 14 states and New York City and Washington, D.C. “If implemented, the Rule will have a drastic impact on Plaintiffs and their residents by depriving between 688,000 and 850,000 vulnerable Americans of much-needed nutritional assistance.”
New York and D.C. have limited employment opportunities? New York City has an unemployment rate of 4%. 73,000 new jobs were created last year. It’s one of the biggest and wealthiest cities in the world. People from all across the world comes to the Big Apple to cash in.
Limited economic opportunity? Really. Several major industries are practically based out of New York City. And the government sector is its own vast employment machine.
Furthermore asking people to enroll in a vocational training program is how you help people find economic opportunity.
Leave a Reply