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Heritage Foundation
Welfare
Currently Punishes Work and Marriage. This Bill Would End That.
Sen. Mike Lee
June 20, 2017
There is much to celebrate in America today. Americans are, on average,
wealthier, healthier, and better educated than we ever have been.
We’ve made huge strides in civil rights and racial equality. And we
have access to technology that would have awed past generations.
But fundamentally, our culture and way of life has undergone some
changes that are not necessarily positive.
As documented in the recently released report, “What We Do Together:
The State of Associational Life in America,” Americans’ day-to-day
lives have significantly changed over the last few decades—and not
always for the better.
Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. But this can't
be done alone. Find out more >>
Between 1970 and 2016, the share of children not being raised by two
parents rose from 15 to 31 percent. Over that same time, births to
single mothers rose from 11 percent to 40 percent.
And more than half of American children now live with a single parent
at some point before they turn 16.
This breakdown of the American family has real economic and social
consequences for all of us. On average, children from married
households live healthier lives, attain higher levels of education,
earn more, and enjoy greater wealth as adults than children from
single-parent households.
As the American family has been weakening, our attachment to work has
been fraying for many as well.
Between 1970 and 2016, labor force participation for prime-working-age
men declined from 96 percent to 89 percent. The fall-off has been worse
for men with little education, who now put in 14 percent fewer hours at
work in 2012 than they did in the mid-1970s.
There is no silver-bullet solution to these problems. The causes are
cultural, economic, and policy related. What we do know is that at a
bare minimum, government should not be actively making these problems
worse.
Unfortunately, some of our current welfare policies are doing just
that, which is why I introduced the Welfare Reform and Upward Mobility
Act last month.
Prior to the Obama administration, the size of the federal government’s
food stamp program ebbed and flowed with the economy. The number of
recipients went up during recessions and fell during recoveries.
But President Barack Obama ended the link between work and food stamp
eligibility. As a result, today’s food stamp program foots the bill for
44 million people, compared to just 26 million before the recession.
The Welfare Reform and Upward Mobility Act would restore that link
between work and assistance by creating a 100-hour-per-month work
requirement for able-bodied adults without dependents.
Single parents with a child younger than 6 would be exempt from
penalties, but they would still be guaranteed access to all vocational
opportunities offered by the state.
Finally, to make sure that current food stamp recipients are assisted
in their search for work, states would also be given $500 million to
help develop vocational programs for those who have trouble finding
work.
The era of signing citizens up for assistance and then neglecting the
next step must end.
The bill would also allow married parents with children to split the
work requirement between them, thus making it easier for married
parents to balance work and family.
These are admittedly small steps. Much more can be done to end the many
ways federal policies currently punish work and marriage through the
tax code, health policy, and housing assistance.
But we can start by removing some of the barriers that make family and
work life more difficult. And this bill, the Welfare Reform and Upward
Mobility Act, would start making that happen.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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