Number of welfare recipients likely to continue falling: Darrell Scott
The number of welfare recipients may continue to decline, thanks to a record-low unemployment level and an increase in the number of available jobs, according to Darrell Scott, CEO of the Urban Revitalization Coalition.
“It’s a great time in America to get good jobs and better jobs, so why would we encourage someone to take advantage of a welfare system that was never intended to be a handout, it was intended to be temporary assistance for those in need?” Scott told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney during an interview on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign touted on Monday the falling number of food stamp recipients, attributing what it says was a one-month decline of 600,000 people to the president’s decision to require recipients of the social service to join the workforce.
In fact, the number of people participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been steadily declining since 2014, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the monthly supplement.
In 2016, the U.S. poverty rate hovered around 12.7%, with 40.6 million living in poverty. In 2017, there were more than 42.2 million SNAP recipients.
But no matter the reason for the drop in welfare recipients, Scott said it was a good thing to see more able-bodied Americans working, and fewer relying on SNAP or similar programs to survive.
“The thing that we have to realize is that welfare was never intended to be a lifestyle, nor was it intended especially to be generational,” he said. “I mean you have second, third, fourth, fifth generational welfare recipients in America, and it was never intended to serve that purpose.”