GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — The state of Georgia is getting $15 million in federal money to try to reduce the number of able-bodied Georgians who are drawing food stamps every month.
About 200,000 Georgians fit into the target category: healthy adults with no dependents and on food stamps.
The requirement to work or go to a school was eased during the recent recession, but the requirement is back.
Two U.S. Cabinet members made an unusual joint tour of the Gwinnett Tech campus to make the announcement Friday.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez talked about job training specifically aimed at getting people off of food stamps, which the government calls the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
"One misconception may be that everybody that's on SNAP is not working, could work but isn't working, chooses not to work," Vilsack said.
Vilsack repeatedly made the point that 80 percent of those on food stamps are elderly, disabled, children or parents.
But he knows how some taxpayers think.
"Folks say, 'Well those folks, you know, we ought to make them work. They ought to go to school in order to get these benefits,'" Vilsack said.
In Georgia, about 200,000 food stamp recipients are affected by the mandatory requirement to work or go to school 20 hours a week to keep full benefits.
"We're connecting people to career pathways. That's the key to making sure that folks are long-term off of food stamps, and other assistance is connecting them to career pathways," Perez said.
And if an able-bodied food stamp recipient doesn't want to work or go to school?
"Then the benefits you have are limited to three months every 36 months," Vilsack said.
Vilsack criticized Republican budget proposals to give food stamp block-grants to each state, saying that would cut millions of Americans off the program.
Better, he argues, to try to get them training and jobs.