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President Trump Says He Wants at Least 6 Million People Off Welfare

President Donald Trump

The message from the White House is clear: "If you're on food stamps and able-bodied, we need you to go to work." Trump and his aides make it sound so simple -- just put the 6 million welfare recipients into America's over 5.7 million job openings. But it is far from simple, and many feel also impossible.

Here's why it won't work

If Trump thinks cutting welfare benefits will encourage more people to work, he is wrong. Even economists call the idea magical thinking. It just doesn't work that way Mr. President. You can't just plop 6 million unemployed Americans into 6 million open jobs. Trump seems to assume all these welfare folks will magically qualify for all these jobs. But they don't.

Why not train them?

Well, that won't work either. Why? Because Trump has already proposed cutting job training programs by 40 percent. Without funding for proper training for these jobs, companies can't hire 6 million unemployed welfare workers because the workers just don't have the skills for the jobs.

So, it seems unlikely that Trump will be able to "Make America Great Again" by simply matching the unemployed to open jobs. It's just not realistic. Many share this thinking, like Rep. Mark Sanford, a Republican from South Carolina, who recently stated "This budget presumes a Goldilocks economy. ... I don't know how you get there." He added, "we have to base it on real numbers."

The whole idea is part of Trump's plan to balance the budget within 10 years. What will the country look like then?


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