From Why welfare reform fails its recession test By Peter Edelman and Barbara Ehrenreich , Sunday, December 6, 2009, Washington post
With these hard times, many people are losing their jobs, their homes, their cars and most think – they can rely on welfare- even if it is a last resort. Unbeknownst to them, even welfare is of little to no help.
"applying for welfare is a lot like being booked for a crime." There may be a mug shot, fingerprinting and lengthy interrogations as to the true paternity of one's children. Word gets around, and, even in the face of destitution, many people will not undergo such indignities.
When President Clinton signed the welfare reform in 1996, welfare went from bad to worse.
We all are well aware of the flaws within the system. However, no one was prepared for the deep chasm in the system without safety nets.
Welfare is neither enough to get people out of poverty, nor do they help applicants get or keep jobs, even though that is one of their main priorities. With the welfare reform of 1996 Clinton ended the legal right to cash assistance and imposed a 5 year limit to recipients. It also gave states complete discretion on how to administer benefits. As a result, welfare rolls were slashed 2/3 nationally in a few years.
While people are still entitled to unemployment, their benefits amount to less than ½ half their former wages.
As for food stamps - “the average benefit still isn't enough to meet people's basic nutritional needs, the program now serves 36 million people”
The case load for TANF (welfare) is about 5 million people, it's still just a little over a third of what it was 15 years ago, before welfare reform.”
“Why the huge difference between unemployment insurance and food stamp usage and welfare caseloads? People have a legal right to food stamps if they meet the statutory requirements, but since 1996 there has been no legal right to cash assistance.”
“According to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, the number of homeless Americans is up by 61% since the recession began in December 2007.”
“The number of people living in poverty increased by 2.5 million during the first year of the recession”
“The government reported recently that nearly 50 million Americans are experiencing what it delicately calls "food insecurity."
“…advocates of welfare reform seemed to consider poverty a voluntary condition, one curable with a quick kick in the pants and the opportunity to work for minimum wage.”
Research showed that one in five former recipients ultimately became disconnected from any means of support: They no longer had welfare, but they didn't have jobs. They hadn't married or moved in with a partner or family, and they weren't getting disability benefits. And so, after a decline in the late 1990s, the number of people living in extreme poverty (with an income less than half the poverty line, or below about $9,100 for a family of three) shot up by more than a third, from 12.6 million in 2000 to 17.1 million in 2008.
Many observers welcomed these huge declines as proof that welfare reform was working. They didn't bother to follow these families as they moved into ever more crowded living situations, pieced together patchworks of part-time jobs or left their children alone while they went to work.
The current crisis shows even more vividly that TANF is essentially irrelevant in large parts of the country.
At the end of last year, Wyoming had 281 families on its rolls -- about 550 people. Idaho had 1,600 families, Oklahoma had 8,639, and Arkansas had 8,664. The share of poor families receiving TANF was 4 percent in Wyoming, 5 percent in Idaho, 9 percent in Illinois, 9 percent in Louisiana and 9 percent in Texas. Caseloads fell in 20 states during 2008. – How is that possible when so many people are LOSING their jobs?
Benefits are tiny, too, with 30 states paying a maximum benefit that's less than 30 percent of the federal poverty line. Mississippi skimps by offering its TANF recipients $170 a month for a family of three, about 9 percent of the poverty line and barely enough to cover the utility bills
Fourteen states said they had not changed any of their TANF policies or practices in response to higher unemployment.
42 states have rules that discourage enrollment, Two techniques used to reduce welfare rolls:
"diversion" -- essentially telling someone: "You look able-bodied. Go out and look for a job."
· requiring an extensive job search, even when there are obviously no jobs to be found.
· For a person without a car or access to public transportation, a requirement to apply for dozens of jobs before an application for welfare will even be considered, as some states and counties mandate, can be a deal-breaker.
"sanctioning"
· kicking people off the rolls because they were late to a work assignment (no excuses accepted, whether for sick children, late buses or car trouble)
· or didn't show up for an appointment at the welfare office (no dispensation for failure to receive notice of an appointment or inability to understand English).
· In some states multiple infractions of this sort can result in lifetime disqualification.
