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Maine DHHS Says Food Stamp Eligibility Change a Success

Mal Leary
/
MPBN
Maine DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew at a news conference Wednesday.

AUGUSTA, Maine - A new study by the governor's Office of Policy and Management concludes that the change requiring able-bodied adults without dependents to work, perform volunteer work, or be in a job training program to get food stamp benefits is working.

Maine Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew says it's a policy change that is helping get people off welfare.

"Incomes for those individuals who are no longer on the food stamp program as the result of re-instituting the work requirement - their individual incomes rose 114 percent within a year," Mayhew says.

But Rep. Drew Gattine of Westbrook, a Democrat who co-chairs the Legislature's Human Services Committee, says the improving economy may have more to do with people finding jobs than the policy change. He says other studies have shown people go on and off food stamps for many reasons.

"Generally speaking, they are a population that are not on the program that long anyway, tend to work, tend to have fluctuation in income," Gattine says. "So I really don't think, based on what I heard today, you could draw a conclusion that what the department is doing is successful."

DHHS officials say 6,866 able-bodied adults without dependents were removed from the food stamp program in December 2014.

Journalist Mal Leary spearheads Maine Public's news coverage of politics and government and is based at the State House.