A policy question these days that has befuddled federal lawmakers is why so many millions of people have not returned to the workplace in the post-COVID-19 era. The labor force participation rate among employable adults is near a record low today. There are at least 2 million to 4 million employable adults who could and should be working but aren’t.
Very few people with even minimal skills can credibly say they can’t find a job. Employers report some 10 million job openings. Small business owners say their biggest problem is finding competent workers.
There are many explanations for why so many people aren’t working — fear of COVID-19, the skills mismatch, more people taking early retirement, and so on. But a major factor is that the federal government is back to doing what it did in the 1970s and 1980s. The welfare state today is paying people not to work — even a single hour.
That problem went away in the 1990s after many states, such as Wisconsin and Michigan, began reforming their welfare systems with work requirements. Then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and the Republican Congress in 1996 passed a historic bipartisan welfare reform bill that President Bill Clinton signed into law.
That law required able-bodied welfare recipients to be in a job or training/education program to qualify for welfare assistance. It also placed time limits on welfare so it would not become a way of life.
Few laws in the last half-century have had such stunning success. Here is a quick summary of the impact, as reported by Brookings Institution welfare expert Ron Haskins:
No. 1: Caseloads declined by 60%, and the number of welfare recipients fell to its lowest level since 1969.
No. 2: Between 60% and 70% of those leaving welfare got a job.
No. 3: The child poverty rate fell every year between 1994 and 2000 because parents were working.
No. 4: The federal government saved more than $50 billion (almost $100 billion in today’s dollars).
Despite these stunning successes, President Joe Biden eviscerated all work requirements during COVID-19, and they haven’t returned. The House Ways and Means Committee reports that less than half of Americans collecting welfare benefits today are working. The Biden administration opposes work requirements.
Why? Do they want to make people dependent on the government?
Getting welfare recipients back into the labor force is good for the economy and will reduce government debt. But a pro-work policy is good for those who escape welfare dependency.
Every study shows that having a job is highly associated with better health, longer life expectancy, happiness, and improvements in family conditions. Children and spouses of someone who is working are better off.
There is dignity and a sense of self-worth from working.
America is a rich nation, and we should absolutely have a safety net so that those who fall on tough times, lose a job or become disabled — and that happens to almost all of us at some point in our lives — do not go hungry or homeless or suffer from deprivation.
But welfare is supposed to be temporary and a hand-up, not a handout. The goal of welfare was to end poverty, not perpetuate it.
House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) said that restoring work for welfare requirements is “a top priority” of his panel. It should be a top priority for our country. Let’s make work, not welfare, pay.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”
Realistically; a person has 2 to 5 dependent children will say unable to work cause no babysitting available will probably make more (benefit wise) than someone working and paying babysitting costs. So why work? At same tine all the other half just does not work but still resides there without paying any costs whatsoever.
I want to be sure I understand: Are you saying “no babysitter” isreason to collect welfare?
It is not the government’s job to be babysitter, either for the real American children, or their parental faked out children in adult bodies. Collective national Self-government is designed only for those who can idividually govern themselves. CHildren in any form should not be given the righ to vote. Take the welfare check, get boxed out of the voting booth, by choice, not cirmunstance.
Plus since they ARE on welfare, shouldn’t they BE AT HOME TO BABYSIT their own damn kids!
EVERY GOVT program that has purported to be “Temporary” still exists, 30+ YEARS LATER.. SS was supposed to be temporary, its now in its 100th year.
Welfare same
Wic same
EBT same..
Once again, it’s really not rocket science, which is precisely why the brain-dead dem-rats don’t get it.
When you pay people as much, if not more to stay home than they could make working, that’s exactly what they’re gonna do.
Not everybody would, but too many certainly would.
Exactly. ITS human nature. IF i am gonna get paid MORE for being lazy, than i would being a productive worker, AND there’s no DOWN SIDE to being a lazy kerfuffle.. THEN MOST will be that way!
The reason why so many millions of people have not returned to the workplace in the post-COVID-19 era is that hunger is the greatest of motivators. Stop feeding them and hunger will motivate them to again act like productive Humans, not bottom feeding drugged out snails and slugs. If we took all the money paid to feed, and house the welfare slugs who just used it to fund the Mexican cartel drug Lords product purchases, we could pay off the Biden produced national debt, and create enough taxable wealth creating jobs to balance the national budget. Just call it the Democrat party Secular socialist planned obsolescence of working and workable American Democracy.