Posted on 10/27/2015 5:33:39 AM PDT by MichCapCon
The number of people receiving welfare cash assistance from the state has plummeted since Gov. Rick Snyder took office, partly due to the improved economy but also because the state now enforces a limit on how long beneficiaries could receive cash benefits.
There were 227,490 people receiving cash assistance benefits from the state in 2011. As of August 2015, that number was down to 64,492. The state welfare agency's Family Independence Program provides temporary cash assistance to pregnant women and families with children. The program also attempts many interventions to get people employed in long-term jobs.
From 2005 to 2011, the number of people in this program held consistently in the low 200,000s range. It varied from 202,693 (2009) to 237,102 (2007). However, in 2011, with control of the Legislature and governor's office for the first time since 2002, Republicans adopted reforms that, along with economic growth, have helped reduce the number of people on welfare from 154,941 (2012), to 129,185 (2013) and 89,957 (2014).
The state’s major welfare assistance program is food stamps, now distributed with a debit card system. In August, the state of Michigan paid for $188.7 million in purchases by 1.5 million people.
By comparison, the 64,492 people on traditional welfare cash assistance received $9.1 million from the state.
Bob Wheaton, the spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, attributed some of the drop to the state’s improving economy. Michigan’s unemployment rate was 11.2 percent in December of 2010, but only 5.0 percent this September.
The state is now enforcing a 48-month lifetime limit on cash assistance. Wheaton said the time limit was in place previously but not enforced. The state also enforced federal 60-month time limits going back to the federal and state welfare reforms of 1996.
“As the governor said at the time of the decision to enforce time limits, this was returning cash assistance to its original intent — a transitional program to help families as they work toward self-sufficiency while preserving the safety net for families most in need,” Wheaton said in an email.
He also said many cash assistance recipients have found jobs through another state program called Michigan Works. The state has also stepped up this program's fraud prevention efforts over the last past five years, Wheaton said.
There’s a federal law from 96 giving 60 months limit and it’s just ignored?!?!
and I see Michigan is still taking a beating on SNAP.
But who pays what? The feds or the state pay welfare or snap?
i’m confused, as usual :)
Damn racist oppressors.
a) have suddenly died
b) have suddenly moved out of state
c) were fradulently claiming benefits.
Relocating to Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota?
A lot of those leaches receiving cash benefits simply moved to Indiana or Wisconsin to continue receiving welfare in those state. Their like locust, they just move to where the money is.
SNAP cost is shared by the state with the Federal Government. A lot don’t realize that pool is limited and the more that sign up, the less each gets.
From 2011 to 2013, SSDI claims in Michigan increased by $10M. Since we don't have data later than that, let's assume this continued through 2015. So we have a total $20M increase in Federal disability claims for Michigan from 2011 - 2015.
Assuming that the remaining 64,492 deadbeats receiving $9.1M from the state in 2015 scales to those who were dropped from the rolls, we would find that the roughly 140,000 who were dropped would have been receiving 9.1/64,000 * 140,000 = $19.9M.
So, we see that every one of the 140,000 moochers who went off the rolls of state welfare simply became federal moochers claiming SSDI instead. There are no new jobs, and no fewer moochers, they just get paid from federal taxpayers instead of state. QED.
0 ended that.
Well, well, well. Looks like when government enforces the rules and doesn’t let people get hand outs forever that the people actually get up and go to work. The dirty little secret of Welfare is that a lot of people — black and white — are just plain lazy. If they get enough to sit in an apartment with their smokes and booze and watch cable TV and talk on their Obamaphone, they are OK with that lifestyle. As long as they don’t have to work. But if they are forced to work, they will. No one wants to say that as part of the public policy debate — that people are lazy and need to be forced to work.
that figures!!!!!
Looks like perhaps passage of the Right to Work Law is having a positive effect on Michigan in more ways than one.
No, see my post 8; they are all on SSDI now.
Working is a habit, a person who is used to working forty hours a week or more can feel something like withdrawal symptoms when unemployed but someone who has never really gotten into the habit can feel quite comfortable doing nothing. Someone who has reached adulthood without ever learning what it means to work may have no desire to ever work, that is why I think it is a shame when children don’t have an opportunity to do some kind of productive work growing up. I started doing chores as soon as I was able to walk and lift and carry something very small. By the time I was able to lift a single piece of firewood I was helping to fill the bin.
Florida and Texas.
Better known as Clintons highly successful Welfare Reform Act of 1996....gag.
Wonder just which BLUE STATES they are sending these Democrat Voters, aka Redistribution of Democrats.
It seems like social services will, indeed, transfer someone in a non-working family to SSDI so the family has additional funds. And the payments go back to the first application if they were turned down. Some are so lazy that nearly every place in our town advertises for job seekers, yet they go unfilled.
That is correct.
I am from Michigan and have my soon-to-be retirement home up in a little village in the northern woods.
When I was a teen a woman moved in across from our house. She had two sons and did not have a job. The State of Michigan was paying for the house and she was on every kind of free money assistance. This woman never held a full time job, always complained when she had some type of job, and never held one job for more than a year. The State paid for her house (she is now the owner) and just recently she applied and was given new siding and a new steel roof while I have worked all my life and have to pay for my upcoming roof replacement. She has received many free upgrades and improvements to her house over the years and has NEVER paid a penny for any of them.
The last time I was up there she complained that her Michigan welfare was cancelled so she had been approved for SSDI. This morbidly obese woman's youngest son got married and followed in her footsteps. Both he and his wife are on SSDI and they are currently trying to get their son on it by claiming he cannot read at his proper grade level! There are many people like her living in this village.
I am so sick of paying for low-life, uneducated, lazy slobs who get so much for free while I work my butt off and pay my own way.
Don't get me wrong, I do not want free stuff. I work and earn for what I have, I just want their hands out of my wallet.
The FSA is not amused!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.