Speaker’s Office
The House today overwhelmingly passed one of Speaker T.W. Shannon’s major initiatives to reform social programs.
House Bill 1909 would require able able-bodied recipients ages 18 to 50, who are not disabled or raising a child, to perform at least 20 hours of work activities as a condition of receiving food stamps. Those work requirements come from the 1996 Welfare Reform Law. Currently able-bodied individuals do not have to fulfill work requirements due to waivers handed out by the federal government. This bill will order DHS to no longer seek those work requirement waivers.
“It’s time we encourage the value of personal responsibility,” said Speaker Shannon, R-Lawton. “This measure will help able-bodied people break their addiction to government subsidies and let them focus on building a career as opposed to continually suffering under the wheel of poverty.”
HB 1909 will now move on to the Senate.
