Gov. Paul LePage (R-ME)
More than 6,000 people in Maine are getting
more than usually screwed by the hole-riddled U.S. safety net and their state's evil buffoon of a governor:
Gov. Paul LePage (R) decided last year to prematurely reinstate tougher eligibility rules requiring food stamps recipients to work. The state agency that maintains SNAP in Maine launched the change in October, and reports that 6,500 of the state’s roughly 215,000 SNAP beneficiaries had been booted from the program as of the end of 2014, WGME’s investigation found.
A Maine official portrayed the decision as “complying with federal requirements” in an interview with the station, but the federal government offered to waive those requirements for Maine and 36 other states back in May. In those 37 states, economic conditions are so bad that the federal government invited state officials to suspend the work requirement that usually applies to able-bodied adults without dependents who want SNAP benefits. When the economy is healthy and jobs are plentiful, a person with no disability and no one to look after must demonstrate that they are working or in job training at least 20 hours a week in order to get food stamps for more than 90 days in any three-year period. If economic conditions are dire, though, federal officials allow state administrators to waive the work rules for SNAP.
Maine could have those work rules waived, but LePage doesn't want that. So even though there are not enough jobs to go around, adults without children and without jobs can go starve, basically.