Solving the manufactured debt-ceiling shakedown, er, crisis, included the House expanding work requirements for those receiving SNAP benefits, the program formerly known as food stamps.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute, the add-ons to the current requirements will affect about 750,000 recipients ages 50-54, some of whom could lose the nutritional benefit. Based on data from the Congressional Budget Office, the new SNAP will definitely be saying goodbye to a quarter of a million in the same age range.

Requiring work to receive government benefits sounds like a good idea: We are a country that honors labor. We talk of the dignity of work. “Hardworking Americans” remain a stale but favorite chestnut of politicians. We even have a holiday celebrating our work lives.

I once tested the hypothesis that individual industry brings dignity. I wrote a series of stories on the meaning of work. To do so, I worked full time for a week at 12 different jobs, intent on understanding the labor involved and the mindset of the person behind that toil.

The series covered a variety of occupations: grocery store checker, high school attendance clerk, city hall receptionist, home construction laborer, hot tar street repair crew member, hospital room food deliverer/dishwasher, holiday season retail clerk, seed corn harvester, morning drive time radio DJ, fabrication plant robotic welding operator, hand therapy clinic technician and, finally, an “assistant” to a Catholic priest including my delivering a Sunday “sermon,” the jury still out on whether that constituted blasphemy.

My spiritual status aside, I found mostly dedicated workers, some defined by their work, others not so much, but all connected to a sense of self-respect that employment brings. Moreover, those weeks when I worked these jobs, I kept my regular schedule at the newspaper, so I also understood, in part, what it meant to work two jobs, a reality for many Americans.

While work fulfills economic ends, my anecdotal field experience showed that jobs also satisfy a social construct in our society. Status, yes, but I would argue honest labor brings even more: acceptance and a sense of being part of something bigger than any individual worker.

Research on work requirements presents disappointing data. A CBO analysis of government programs that require work indicated that they fail to move the needle. Employment either increased only in the short term or not at all. Moreover, most people in SNAP who can work already do, but often in low-paying jobs without benefits, sending them, ironically, back to SNAP. Moreover, being without medical coverage leads to overall poorer health and the potential for economic catastrophe, which a serious illness can bring.

All of which may mean we are asking the wrong questions, especially as food prices have risen. For instance, why can’t full-time workers afford to feed their families without government assistance? While some states, including Nebraska, have raised the minimum wage, the working poor continue to be both: working and poor.

We might also ask what we are doing to solve a child-care crisis that has shown it has disproportionately hit low-income families trying to balance work, home and family. The child-care crisis is a good place for legislatures and governors who tell us they care about children to act on those words.

Even though requiring a job seems reasonable to get SNAP benefits, we might ask ourselves, too, whether somewhere in the principle of work requirements is a latent sense of punishment, some leftover from Ronald Reagan’s trope of “welfare queens” ripping off the government?

Certainly fraud exists in public assistance, just as it does in other government benefit programs. But do we treat one set of Americans who receive benefits differently from another? A Missouri state senator proposed that no one receiving food assistance could buy seafood — apparently nutrition from the deep is too much luxury. In Kansas, lawmakers considered movies and public swimming pools off limits for recipients of government largess.

The “Welfare to Work” programs started during the Clinton administration were based on the same “sweat equity” idea: Work can move a family forward, up and away from reliance on the government by participating in its own recovery from poverty.

Today, while jobs are plentiful and opportunities to move away from government assistance available, we can’t assume a work requirement for benefits solves the problem.

Let’s continue to dignify work. But let’s address questions about a living wage to meet the cost of living, benefits and child care.

This story was originally published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. It is part of the national nonprofit States Newsroom. Find more at nebraskaexaminer.com.