Biden pays to not work

Health and Hu­man Ser­vices Sec­re­tary Xavier Be­cerra on Wednes­day ex­tended the na­tional pub­lic-health emer­gency for an­other 90 days. Why? Be­cause per­ma­nent cri­sis means more de­pendence on gov­ern­ment.

The Fam­i­lies First Coro­n­avirus Re­sponse Act of March 2020 sus­pended food-stamp work re­quire­ments for able-bod­ied adults with­out de­pen­dents dur­ing the emer­gency. These in­di­vid­u­als nor­mally can’t re­ceive ben­e­fits for more than three months over a three-year pe­riod un­less they work or par­tic­i­pate in a work-train­ing pro­gram. Con­gress also boosted ben­e­fits, so the av­er­age monthly pay­ment is now dou­ble ($240 per per­son) what it was in 2019.

Con­gress also in­creased Med­icaid fund­ing for states dur­ing the emer­gency on the con­di­tion they don’t re­move ben­e­fi­cia­ries from their rolls, even if they earn too much to qual­ify. Med­icaid en­roll­ment has swelled by more than 14.6 mil­lion (20%) since Feb­ruary 2020—more than gained cov­er­age from Oba­ma­Care.