SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/johnnybgoode/Desktop/Back%20issue%20text%20files/June/June%202/BACK%20ISSUE_June2.txt @font-face { font-family: “Times New Roman”; }@font-face { font-family: “ＭＳ 明朝”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }p.MsoPlainText, li.MsoPlainText, div.MsoPlainText { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Courier; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }
Reforming welfare-benefits to work
The great welfare debate has raged for years. How do we help the needy, stop the greedy, ensure that welfare programs are accountable, and make personal responsibility our goal?
In 1996, Congress passed a welfare reform bill, replacing the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Congressional action gave New York State more flexibility to transition families from welfare to work.
The state legislature enacted sweeping, historic welfare reform measures in the 1997-98 budget to bring New York State into full compliance with the federal changes.
The primary focus of welfare reform is on work rather than on eligibility for benefits. By emphasizing work over welfare and providing families with a wide array of support for those who are transitioning back into the workforce, New York State has helped record numbers of people free themselves from welfare dependency.
Welfare rolls are now at historic lows. As of March 2008, welfare recipients in New York totaled 513,388. That’s a drop of over 1 million (nearly 65%) from January 1995, when there were more than 1.6 million New Yorkers receiving public assistance.
A senate initiative signed into law makes sure that some money is exempt in calculating the amount of benefits of any household under any public assistance program. For example, the law exempts and disregards an asset up to $2,000 ($3,000 if someone in the household is 60 or older), a primary residence, and an automobile valued at up to $4,650 (or $9,300 if it is needed to seek or retain employment). This ensures that families do not have to divest themselves of everything in order to qualify for public assistance. And it keeps a car available for people to get to work.
Caring for families is important as well. In 2007, public assistance recipients whose full-time presence in the home is required because of illness or incapacity of another member of the household were exempted from the traditional work requirements. A cost of living adjustment was enacted in 2007 to increase the personal needs allowance for aged, blind, and disabled persons in residential care.
In order to emphasize the importance of access to child care for working parents, the legislature approved a measure that permits employed applicants or recipients of public assistance benefits to choose to receive child day care subsidies in lieu of benefits even if they are not working the minimum number of hours required to fulfill public assistance work requirements.
Fraud detection is key to maintaining the integrity of welfare programs, which is why the state had enacted “finger imaging”-to ensure that the person receiving benefits is legally entitled to them. The governor removed that requirement for recipients of food stamps, so the senate passed a bill to reinstate the requirement as a matter of law rather than agency rule. The bill requires social services districts to conduct automated finger imaging eligibility verification of all members of a household 18 years of age or older, including the head of household applying for or receiving food stamps, and provides for denial of food stamp benefits to households refusing to participate in the verification process. Unfortu-nately, it did not pass the assembly.
The legislature approved legislation last year to require local social services districts to emphasize training for and employment in sustainable wage jobs, and to promote understanding of nontraditional work opportunities for individuals participating in public assistance employment programs. The intent was to move recipients into careers that provide economic independence, rather than into low-wage, low-income jobs that tend to cycle recipients back into the welfare system. Sadly, the governor vetoed it.
Let’s help the needy. And let’s be sure we emphasize work as the precondition of eligibility for benefits.
