Why are rural Americans more likely to lose benefits due to the work requirements than inner-city folk?
From the CBO:
Effects of Work Requirements on Employment, Income, and the Federal Budget
- Making the receipt of benefits contingent on working or preparing to work has substantially increased the employment rate of the targeted recipients in TANF during the year after they enter the program and by a smaller amount in later years. Work requirements in SNAP have increased employment less; in Medicaid, they appear to have had little effect on employment.
- Although some people have higher income because they work more to meet the programs’ requirements, other people do not meet the work requirements and are left with little income from in-kind benefits, cash payments, earnings, or other sources. Overall, the increase in total earnings from TANF’s work requirements is about equal to the reduction in benefits. In contrast, work requirements in SNAP and Medicaid have reduced benefits more than they have increased people’s earnings.
- In general, tightening work requirements would reduce federal spending by decreasing the amount of benefits provided; the extent of the budgetary savings would depend on the details of the policy. If lawmakers used the savings from tightening work requirements to increase work supports that helped recipients meet those requirements, the federal budget would change little (or perhaps not at all).
It is not really even a "work requirement." You can qualify by merely looking for work.
By law, most able-bodied parents who receive those benefits must participate in work-related activities. SNAP and Medicaid serve much broader and larger populations than TANF; they also have included work requirements at times, but typically applied them only to able-bodied adults without dependents. To support recipients who are working or searching for work, policymakers have made subsidized child care and workforce development services available to some participants in those programs, particularly TANF.
At a Glance In this report, the Congressional Budget Office analyzes the effects of work requirements and work supports on employment and income of participants in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Medicaid. The agency also...
www.cbo.gov
Seriously, it is an unbearable hardship to fill out some job applications and go on interviews if called in? So much so that people would rather starve?
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