Paying Americans Not to Work | Key findings – The Committee to Unleash Prosperity:
- In 24 states, unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies for a family of four with no one working ar the annualized equivalent of at least the national median household.
- A family making almost a quarter of a million dollars annually still qualifies for ObamaCare subsides in every state.
- In a dozen states, the value of unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies exceeds the salary and benefits of the average teacher, construction worker, electrician, firefighter, truck driver, machinist or retail associate.
- In New Jersey, a family of four can receive benefits equal to an annualized earned income of $108,000 with no one working.
- In Connecticut and New Jersey, a family earning $300,000 per year can receive ObamaCare subsidies.
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The Battle Over Work and Welfare – WSJ
States are fighting back against the Biden drive to use the pandemic to increase dependency.
By The Editorial Board, Dec. 11, 2022 – Excerpts:
The Biden Administration is using the pandemic to expand the class of Americans who are permanent government dependents. Some GOP-led states are trying to exit this road to serfdom, and Georgia recently won its lawsuit against the Administration to impose Medicaid work requirements for low-income, able-bodied adults. This is a major fault line between the parties and deserves more attention.
….Progressives are now trying to deter GOP states from imposing work requirements by flogging the compliance costs. “The systems being set up for work requirements are very costly to implement for states,” a left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analyst told MedPage Today. Suddenly progressives care about costs to taxpayers?
For the past two years, the Administration has repeatedly extended the national public-health emergency for no ostensible purpose other than to expand the welfare rolls. President Biden in September declared the pandemic over, but the Health and Human Services Department says it plans to extend the emergency until at least mid-April.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020 increased federal Medicaid funding to states on the condition that they don’t kick ineligible beneficiaries off their rolls as long as a public-health emergency is in effect. The law also increased food-stamp benefits and waived work requirements for able-bodied, working-age adults during the emergency.
Since February 2020, Medicaid enrollment has ballooned by 23 million to an all-time high of 97 million. By comparison, Medicaid grew by 14 million between 2013, just before the ObamaCare expansion took effect, and the start of the pandemic. About 21 million Medicaid recipients don’t currently meet eligibility requirements, according to the Foundation for Government Accountability.
As long as the emergency is in effect, Georgia can’t remove able-bodied adults on Medicaid who don’t comply with its work requirements—or if it does, it may have to give up hundreds of millions in federal funds. The emergency is a Faustian bargain for states, delivering some $130 billion in additional Medicaid funds to date while restricting their ability to manage their programs.
The same is true for food stamps whose rolls have swelled by nearly five million nationwide, or about 13%, during the pandemic owing chiefly to the emergency suspension of work requirements, even as unemployment has reached pre-pandemic levels. Anyone who wants a job can get one, but expanded transfer payments have reduced the incentive to look.
Monthly federal food-stamp spending has more than doubled during the emergency to $9.3 billion owing to the sweetened pandemic benefits and a Department of Agriculture regulatory change last year. Benefits are set to increase another 12.5% this fall with an inflation adjustment. Transfer payments fueled inflation, and now the reverse is happening.
States may forgo the enhanced food stamps by ending their own Covid emergencies or disaster declarations. About 20 mostly Republican-led states have done so, including Florida, Tennessee, Iowa and South Dakota. But the lure of “free” federal money has discouraged most, including Texas and Utah.
… Too many politicians of both parties today want to expand government dependency. A top priority for House Republicans in the next Congress should be to reverse the pandemic inflation of the welfare rolls.
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America does not need narrowly-targeted, incremental change within its its current social welfare bureaucracy – which rewards and promotes dependency on government.
America needs powerful, comprehensive change – of the type which will ‘lift’ people up out of poverty, and cease incentivizing ‘non-work, and provide a dynamic recharge to the economy, eliminate massive amounts of public and private debt, and generate major federal budget surpluses.
The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens. It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.
The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.
The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America
$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (5803 downloads)