The Republican Govt in the State of Maine has had some success in reducing welfare rolls in the state.
Governor Paul LePage of Maine passed a measure last year that requires Food Stamp recipients to complete a certain number of work, job-training, or volunteer hours in order to be eligible for assistance.
As a condition of receiving any assistance, individuals have to complete either 20 hours of part-time work a week, volunteer for at least 24 hours per month, or get involved in a vocational program.
Before the requirement, there were approximately 12000 on the state welfare roles. After a couple of months, this number dropped to 2500.
Opposition Democrats are urging for special measures to ease back on some of the new requirements because they are too strict. Yep, they would be wouldn’t they?
TrueblueNZ 
6 responses to “Maine work for dole reduces welfare rolls by 80%”
Predictable.
I would love NZ to do the same, might have to when OPM runs out.
All welfare recipients should be required to do volunteer work before receiving food and rent stamps. DPB should be limited, child care provided, giving parents the opportunity to do the volunteer work… Yea, not going to happen, but the current burden is unsustainable.
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I had a few ideas on that score. Was thinking those on the dole and pensions could grow food crops on council land.
It’s not hard labour, would get them out of the house and in the community, they would learn some skills, would provide fresh produce for the poor, any excess could be stored for future emergencies/disaster relief
I don’t know if it would work or not – You would have to ask a highly paid expert
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That’s my area of expertise 😉
It’s a good idea, along with other growing jobs, park cleaning, rubbish, etc.
You have to be careful though because these activities can put existing business and jobs under pressure.
The prisons do similar things and they end up competing directly with local business, with the obvious advantage of ‘free’ labor.
Another way to create the work would be for the Gov provide the funds and target the production of goods that we mostly import. There are also plenty of jobs that are done by machine because our minimum wage and the difficulty of dealing with NZ workers that have bad attitudes towards work primarily because they know they don’t have to work. The RSE labor scheme is a classic case of jobs in NZ being outsourced because NZ workers are too difficult.
I would be happy enough, as a start, if they just had to do a physical workout session once a day.
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First: “welfare rolls” not “welfare roles”.
Second: 2500 bludgers is better than 12000, but is still 2500 too many. Plus this has not reduced the welfare staff one jot – got to oversee all those bludgers! Just getting rid of the dole, DPB, and other benefits altogether is far more effective.
Third: properly interpreted, both the US Federal Constitution and the Wisconsin state constitution declare all welfare is unconstitutional. There should never have been any Wisconsin Welfare in the first place!
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Thank you for the correction. Should have noticed myself.
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Cold Turkey just stop it, introduce soap kitchens.
Nothing fancy rice and fish head soup.
But seriously, years of this crap, has produced generational welfare dependency.
Some 10% of the population are retards “sickness beneficiaries”.
They don’t want to work and we say that is fine if you don’t want to work you don’t have to.
Like all ponzie schemes it will eventually run out of money.
Mark my words this will all end very badly.
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