Kane is one of tens of thousands of Mainers affected by sweeping changes made to the state’s anti-poverty programs by the state’s Republican governor, Paul LePage. His administration has tightened eligibility for Medicaid, food stamps, and welfare, and hopes to do yet more: adding work requirements to Medicaid, removing young adults from public health coverage, and eliminating the state’s general-assistance funds for the indigent. The broad aim of these reforms is to create a safety net that provides help for the disabled, elderly, and children, but prompts able-bodied adults to help themselves. “It is this idea that all welfare should be workfare,” said Michael Hillard, an economist at the University of Southern Maine. [...]
These reforms, along with a number of other changes, drastically reduced the amount of money the state spent on safety-net programs, as well as the number of people helped. Maine dropped health coverage for an estimated 14,500 parents and 10,000 childless adults, with Medicaid enrollment declining by more than 70,000 over time. The food-stamp program shrank by more than 20 percent. The number of able-bodied adults without dependents on food stamps plummeted by more than 80 percent. The welfare program halved in size. [...]
That said, the changes do seem to have intensified poverty in the state. As Maine’s unemployment rate has dropped, its poverty rate has barely dropped. The share of Mainers experiencing food insecurity has remained elevated. The proportion of children living in deep poverty in the state has increased at eight times the national average—faster than in any other state—between 2011 and 2015. [...]
In many ways, her answers stressed a deeper truth about the safety net during a time of political polarization. Republicans tend to focus intently on individual responsibility and separating out “deserving” from the “undeserving” poor. Democrats tend to focus on universal programs and changing the social and economic structures that perpetuate poverty. Both ultimately stress that a job is the best way out of poverty. Yet neither has managed to make the labor market work for people at its very bottom.
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