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Showing stories 1 - 15 of 214.
ID - Idaho must repay feds $1.18 million meant for poor families
Submitted by kkurth. Posted on Tuesday, August 14 @ 09:07:57 EDT by kkurth
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The federal government wants back $1.18 million in money for poor families that Idaho spent on a poison control hot line and vaccination registry.
A spokesman for Gov. Butch Otter said the penalty shows the governor has been right to scrutinize how Idaho spends Temporary Assistance for Needy Families dollars intended for poor people.
"There are red flags flapping now," said Jon Hanian, the governor's spokesman. "I think it underscores the concern the governor raised about the potential misuse of TANF (money)."
Idaho misused $1.18 million of the federal funds for poor families, the federal Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a July 26 letter to Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Richard Armstrong.
Most of the money, $1.08 million, went to the Immunization Registry Information System, which tracks children's immunization records.
In May, Otter was widely criticized for considering cuts to Head Start and for eliminating the Parents As Teachers program and the Governor's Coordinating Council for Families and Children - each paid for by the same federal dollars that paid for the two programs for which the state is being penalized.
Otter inherited the questionable funding schemes in programs that arose from former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne's "Generation of the Child" initiative, Hanian said.
"From our perspective, this (penalty) is precisely the concern that I think the governor voiced when he took action to curtail that funding stream for the Parents as Teachers program," Hanian said.
The state can either pay back the money, appeal or negotiate a compromise, according to the letter.
Thomas Shanahan, Health and Welfare spokesman, said the agency does not dispute the misuse of funds. Federal guidelines require the money to go to low-income families. But such families aren't the only ones who benefit from the poison control hot line or immunization registry, he said.
"The feds said these things are open to all populations," Shanahan said. "It's open to everyone, so it's not eligible to be used for TANF dollars - and they were right."
But the state never tried to hide how it was spending the money.
"The thing is, we let them know what we're doing every year," Shanahan said.
So Health and Welfare officials are trying to persuade federal officials to back off the demand for repayment.
"We're saying, 'We kept you informed, and you are probably right. We kept you really well-informed of everything, and we stopped when you told us to.'"
As of July 1, the programs have been funded by a supplemental state appropriation the Legislature passed this year. After fielding the federal questions about the spending in January, Health and Welfare made sure the money would be available if the federal dollars were taken away, Shanahan said.
Full text available at the Idaho Statesman
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IN - FSSA might face $10 million penalty over welfare-to-work rate
Submitted by kkurth. Posted on Wednesday, August 08 @ 10:18:07 EDT by kkurth
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The federal government warned the state this week it faces a $10 million penalty for not moving enough welfare recipients into jobs and off public rolls in 2005.
The penalty, which a Family and Social Services Administration spokesman said the state will appeal, would mean the loss of approximately 5 percent of the state's federal block grant for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. The grant pays for financial aid, job training, child care, child abuse prevention and other programs targeting Indiana's needy.
The news came in a letter sent Monday to FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob by Sidonie Squier, director of the Office of Family Assistance for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Indiana was the only state to receive such a warning letter for federal fiscal year 2005, the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, 2005, Squier said. Guam and the District of Columbia also received letters.
Indiana is among states anticipating such penalties for the current federal fiscal year that ends next month because of new rules under the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. However, the penalty for fiscal year 2005 represents an additional setback to FSSA at a time when it is revamping its programs for welfare, food stamps and Medicaid by outsourcing data processing to a team of vendors led by IBM Corp. under a 10-year, $1.16 billion contract.
"This is the danger if we don't change our system: $10 million in penalties," FSSA spokesman Marcus Barlow said.
The IBM contract, which began this year, is under threat elsewhere in the nation's capital. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a new farm bill that would bar outsourcing eligibility for food stamps. Roob has said it would cost Indiana $125 million to cancel the IBM contract.
Squier said her agency was penalizing Indiana for falling short of its target for the rate of TANF households participating in job training. Indiana's target was 33.4 percent, but its rate was only 30.9 percent, she said.
Barlow said nearly every state is on track to fail a tougher new federal work participation standard set forth in the Deficit Reduction Act, but Squier challenged that notion.
"We think the states can meet the rates," Squier said.
Barlow said FSSA's poor performance in moving adult TANF recipients into the work force underscores the need to reform its welfare eligibility systems. Caseworkers now are buried in paperwork, leaving them too little time to make meaningful progress in helping people leave welfare rolls for jobs.
Under the IBM contract, about 1,500 FSSA employees left the agency in March for jobs with the vendors, who now will process the personal data needed to determine eligibility. About 700 welfare case workers remain with FSSA.
"The state employees that we've kept on can concentrate on helping people get from welfare to work. Right now, people are just getting lost in the system," Barlow said.
Full text available at NWI.com
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WA - Statistics don't tell story of struggling families
Submitted by kkurth. Posted on Friday, July 20 @ 10:23:44 EDT by kkurth
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April Gross is a not a statistic. She's not a label. She's a 25-year-old mother struggling for a better life.
Gross, who has a 2-year-old son named Jordan, dreams of college, and perhaps of becoming a nurse.
About a year ago, some might have labeled her: welfare mom. Thursday, I spoke with the Everett woman because of statistics.
Gov. Chris Gregoire announced this week that the caseload of people on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the state and federal program dubbed TANF, is at its lowest level since 1967.
In June, the number of Washington families receiving assistance dropped below 50,000 for the first time since 1979. "The percentages are even more dramatic; 3.5 percent of the state's population was receiving welfare in 1979, now only 1.8 percent of the population is receiving assistance," Gregoire said in a press release Monday. "As a percentage of the population, the number of people on welfare is the lowest since 1967."
What's good news for taxpayers doesn't tell the whole story.
It doesn't tell the challenges facing Gross and others as they navigate WorkFirst, Washington's welfare-to-work program. It doesn't show all that's required of needy parents as they collect precious little money. All the while, a 12-month clock is ticking. Help is short-lived.
For Gross and her boy, it was $440 per month for just four months.
Gross, who has a high school diploma, said it wasn't easy to seek help. "My son's father and I broke up, and I moved in with my stepmom and my dad in Stanwood," she said. "I didn't expect my parents to take care of my son and me. I was stubborn about wanting to ask for help from the state, but I didn't have a choice."
While on assistance, Gross enrolled in an Everett Community College customized job skills course through the WorkFirst program. She later worked at a Safeway store.
She's now exploring a nursing program at Skagit Valley College. "I don't want to hop from job to job, I want a stable career," she said.
"In WorkFirst, what they did was go for a high level of accountability," said Frank Cox, a WorkFirst training administrator at EvCC. "We are mandated by the feds, through the state, to account for their every hour, including homework hours."
Marilynn Abrahamson, the EvCC WorkFirst coordinator, explained the welfare evolution. In 1997, during Bill Clinton's presidency, Aid to Families with Dependent Children became Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, adding a work requirement. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 boosted the accountability.
People on assistance must log as many as 32 hours of vocational training, work experience or job-search activities per week, Cox said. At EvCC, programs include GED training, welding, computer skills, medical assisting and other high-demand skills.
"People struggle, because there's a high cost of living, to earn a real family wage," Cox said. "It's not an easy row to hoe."
On top of it all are child-raising demands. Assistance is only for parents with dependent children. They get child-care support, medical care for kids and food stamps, which may continue for low-income families after welfare ends.
"It's overcoming tremendous obstacles," Abrahamson said. "For many people on welfare, their parents' level of education was not high. With all the training, we've still found it very difficult to break the cycle of poverty."
She sees the biggest barriers as lack of education, outdated skills, substance abuse and family issues including domestic violence.
"The most obvious thing, they didn't graduate from high school. That's 50 percent of our caseload," Abrahamson said. One year of college, often a vocational certificate, is what she calls "the tipping point" that brings self-sufficiency.
Full text available at Herald Net
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TN - New law requires jobs for welfare checks
Submitted by kkurth. Posted on Friday, June 29 @ 10:05:42 EDT by kkurth
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A change to a state welfare reform program will require participants to work to continue receiving checks and has a local contractor scrambling to find open positions for the new workers.
An update to the Families First program will go into effect Sunday, requiring able-bodied welfare recipients to work at least 30 hours per week to receive financial assistance. Currently, more than 300 Maury County residents in the program will need to find local jobs, said David Fremouw, WorkForce Essentials Inc. job developer facilitator.
“We’re looking for any community-based programs that will give these people the opportunity to earn their required hours,” he said. “We don’t have enough employers to automatically give them those hours.”
There are 64,234 families statewide in the Families First program. Maury County has 584 families receiving assistance, 377 of which have an active work plan with program assistants and still need employment. The average cash benefit for participating families in Tennessee is $167.09 per month. Many families in the program consist of a single mother with children, Fremouw said.
WorkForce Essentials Inc. is a contractor for the Families First program in 34 counties, including Maury. The program is operated statewide by the Tennessee Department of Human Services.
Families First is funded by a federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant of nearly $200 million. The state had a 10-year waiver from adopting federal TANF regulations, allowing the department to customize a more education-oriented program. The waiver expires June 30.
“Now, there are going to be a lot more restrictions, less exemptions and stricter federal penalties if our state work rate is too low,” said Michelle Mowery Johnson, director of communications for TDHS. “Ten years ago, we weren’t ready for the federal system because of education problems. We must adhere to this federal system, so we really need local assistance.”
If jobs are not found and Tennessee does not meet the federal Work Participation Rate of 50 percent, a nearly $20-million penalty could be issued to the state. Half of the penalty would come from state money to reimburse the lost federal funds. Subsequent years in violation could result in a maximum $40-million state fine.
Fremouw has contacted local officials to inform them of the program changes and ask for their help in finding community service jobs for welfare recipients.
“We want employers to understand that these people can bring something to the table,” he said. “They aren’t just a warm body taking up space on the payroll and they need jobs now.”
Currently, people participating in the Families First program are eligible for financial assistance for 18 months. Enrollees are then required to leave the program for the next three months. Lifetime assistance could be given for longer than the federal limit of 60 months with exemptions, such as people over 65 years old, people with newborn children and those who are physically disabled.
The program change restricts lifetime assistance to 60 months for all Families First enrollees, except for child-only cases. The program will also continuously serve recipients. Exemptions regarding physical disabilities are still available, but federal specifications have been established, Johnson said.
Welfare recipients must accumulate 20 hours of job-related activities per week, with the opportunity to receive up to 10 hours per week of educational training.
“You can’t just go to school for 30 hours per week like before,” Johnson said. “The federal requirements are very specific about what is work and what is not.”
The program update is designed to make people want to get back to work and save their assistance allocation for an emergency, Fremouw said.
Full text available at the Daily Herald
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GA - Study: Changes in welfare spending raise questions
Submitted by kkurth. Posted on Friday, June 22 @ 13:38:21 EDT by kkurth
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Georgia has shifted federal welfare money away from programs meant to help recipients find jobs to child-protection programs and other areas, according to a recent report.
The state agency responsible for running the welfare program, however, says it has chosen the right priorities and points to new programs to help people that have left the rolls keep their jobs.
Between 2002 and 2007, welfare spending on "work-related programs" fell from $141.6 million to $103.2 million, a drop of more than a quarter, according to the report issued by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, a non-partisan, progressive think tank.
Meanwhile, the state budgeted $218.5 million on child protective services and similar programs for the fiscal year ending June 30, up from $102.2 million five years ago, the report states.
That suggests the Department of Human Resources, which runs welfare in Georgia, is using the federal money to make up for funding shortfalls in areas where the state should be picking up the tab, said Alan Essig, executive director of the institute.
"The question is, are we giving up some federal funding that could be used to help people become employable to plug holes in the budget?" Essig said.
That could have long-term effects, Essig said, in the form of lost chances to address a pressing problem in Georgia.
"The state is missing an opportunity to develop an antipoverty program," he said.
But the Division of Family and Children Services, the DHR agency responsible for welfare, said the money is being shifted around because of a dramatic drop in the number of people receiving help from the program in recent years.
The report itself points out that the number of adult welfare recipients has fallen by nearly 90 percent and the number of children getting help from the program has dropped by 60 percent.
That reduction has allowed the state to move around money from the program, formally known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, to fund other needs, said Cliff O'Connor, deputy director of DFCS.
"We thought it was a reasonable choice on our part to redirect some of the TANF funding to child welfare services," O'Connor said. " ... We make the decisions based upon what information we have and based on what we think are the most pressing priorities."
O'Connor also pointed out his agency has begun new programs to help TANF recipients stay employed even after they leave the rolls.
In the past year or so, he said, the state has begun giving some cash assistance to people even after they began working and also provides one-time assistance to former welfare recipients for problems such as car trouble that might interfere with their getting to work.
Full text available at the Savannah Morning News
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CA - Welfare to work with a county van to help
Submitted by kkurth. Posted on Wednesday, April 18 @ 11:53:05 EDT by kkurth
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Mendocino County will soon have three minivans, one each in Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg, to support welfare-to-work participants struggling to make it to and from work and other job-related activities.
"Anybody who lives in this county knows that transportation is a big issue," Steve Prochter, assistant director of the Mendocino County Health and Human Services Agency, said.
Citing limited bus routes and the reality that many low-income families simply can't afford to own a vehicle, Prochter said the Social Services Branch will realign $48,000 of state and federal California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) funds previously allocated for employee salaries to purchase the vans.
The vans will be used to drive participants of CalWORKs, a welfare-to-work program designed to move Temporary Assistance to Needy Families recipients into unsubsidized employment, to education and training sites, places where they can apply for jobs, work sites and even to day care sites for their children so they can participate in the program.
According to Prochter, Congress' recent changes to TANF in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 substantially increased the number of assistance recipients required to participate in work activities, spurring the need to get more involved.
Historically, Mendocino County, and the state as a whole, have had participation rates of approximately 30 percent. Now, Prochter said, 50 percent of all single-parent households and 90 percent of all two-parent households are required to be involved in work-related activities.
"To get them into work, to have them come in for training, even to get their kids to day care, all revolves around having available transportation," Prochter said of the decision to purchase the vans.
"We need to be able to reach out to folks, particularly folks in the outlying parts of the county, that we haven't been able to get into these activities," he said.
The state will face fairly substantial penalties if the participation rates are not met, however, with Mendocino County assistance recipients equaling only about three-tenths of one percent of the statewide total, the county will play only a small role in reaching the goal.
"Obviously, we are a very, very small part of that whole puzzle," Prochter said, "but we're doing our part to make sure those targets are met."
Full text available at the Ukiah Daily Journal
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TX - Bill aims to help poorest parents
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Wednesday, March 07 @ 16:10:19 EST by emohan
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Parents who have exhausted their welfare benefits but have children still receiving monthly payments could access job training and child care services for the first time under a bill approved Tuesday by a Senate panel.
The Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted unanimously to spend as much as $40 million annually to fund the services, which would apply for the first time to parents who are not themselves receiving welfare. Historically, only parents making the transition from welfare to work have qualified for job training, child care, housing and transportation services under the state's welfare reform policies.
There is a 60-month federal lifetime limit on welfare for both children and adults. Texas has lower limits for parents who have attended college or been in the work force, meaning parents can "time out" of the system before their children.
Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, sponsor of the measure, said she wants to address the reality that parents need child care and transportation if they are to succeed in the workplace.
"Ultimately it will save us money," said Nelson, chairman of the committee.
Senate Bill 589 now goes to the full Senate for consideration.
The initiative would serve as many as 6,000 parents a year. The funding would come from unused federal funds resulting from the state's decline in welfare caseloads. The Houston Chronicle reported in January that restrictive policies adopted by the Legislature, including cutting off children's checks if their parents fail to meet work and other requirements, have dropped welfare caseloads by 73 percent over the past decade.
Nelson's bill would not cut off children's checks if their parents don't get work. However, a bill filed Friday by Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, would require parents who are not receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families but have children enrolled in the program to meet work requirements.
Janek could not be reached for comment.
In addition to working, parents who are receiving TANF for themselves also must take their children to regular health and dental check-ups and make sure they are immunized, attend parenting classes and not abuse alcohol or drugs.
Celia Hagert, a policy analyst for the Center for Public Policy Priorities, said 3,500 families, including 8,000 children, lose TANF each month for failing to live up to those conditions.
Full text available at the Houston Chronicle
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States Say Welfare Rules Prevent Self-Sufficiency
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Wednesday, March 07 @ 14:39:00 EST by emohan
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New welfare rules make it harder for states to move people from public assistance to self-sufficiency, state officials told Congress on Tuesday.
Stricter work requirements limit opportunities for education programs or vocational training, leaving many welfare recipients stuck in low-paying jobs, they said. Also, the requirements are difficult to meet for people with disabilities or substance-abuse problems.
"I urge you to take steps to return greater flexibility to the states," said Robin Arnold-Williams, Washington state's secretary of social and health services.
"Allow us to return our focus to connecting parents to the labor market so they can increase their family income, support their children and provide a better life for themselves and their family," she told the House subcommittee that oversees welfare issues.
Nancy K. Ford, Nevada's welfare administrator, said that after years of reducing welfare rolls, people still getting payments are among the hardest to place in jobs.
"They are not trained, they are not educated and we need to make them attractive to employers," Ford said.
Congress overhauled the welfare system in 1996, requiring most recipients to work or leave welfare but allowing them to continue to get some benefits after they started working.
The law imposed a five-year limit on cash payments for most people in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF. Some states enacted shorter time limits.
The number of people receiving cash welfare benefits has plummeted by about 60 percent since 1996. But other government programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees.
As a result, nearly one in six people rely on some form of government aid. That is a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago.
The 1996 law required states to have at least half of their single-parent TANF recipients in "work activities," such as a job or vocational training. State had flexibility to define work activities, and they got credits for people who had left welfare after 1995, regardless of whether they were working.
The credits allowed states to become lax in requiring welfare recipients to work, with only 32 percent of TANF families engaged in work-related activities in 2004, said Sidonie Squier, director of the federal office that overseas welfare programs.
"It was time to reverse this trend so that all TANF recipients would have the opportunity to become self-sufficient," Squier told the subcommittee.
When Congress renewed the welfare law last year, it enacted stricter work requirements and eliminated credits for people who left welfare before 2005.
Preliminary rules from the Health and Human Services Department in June defined which activities would count as work. Job training and rehabilitation programs can count toward work requirements, but only for limited periods.
Final rules are expected in September and states will be required to adhere to them by October, Squier said. States that do not meet the new requirements could lose millions of dollars in federal money and be required to spend more state money on welfare programs.
Full text available at Local6.com
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NH - New State Welfare Program Raises Questions
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Thursday, February 15 @ 09:53:21 EST by emohan
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When state welfare director Terry Smith is asked about the success of the new program he likes to talk about personal responsibility.
Before the state adopted changes to its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF program people could receive monthly checks for up to six months without ever sitting down with a work program counselor.
But now, in order to receive any cash assistance, an individual must first make that meeting.
Just since October, the state's rate of so-called 'no-shows' dropped from 70% to fewer than 20%.
"people were concerned that TANF clients...we would lose TANF clients b/c they couldn't make it to the orientation. In a way that is an insidious disrespect for clients b/c they have been finding ways, they are smart people out there, they just happen to be poor. And they are finding ways to get to the orientation. And they are participating."
Smith knows getting yourself to orientation is not the same thing as getting a job.
But he sees it as indicative of people's ability to meet the more demanding requirements of the new TANF program.
In 2006, federal officials increased the number of people who had to enroll in work activities such as unsubsidized employment, internships, and limited vocational education.
If states failed to place 50% of their caseload into those types of activities they could lose federal funding.
In response, New Hampshire HHS officials took steps to thin the number of clients on welfare by removing work exemptions for certain people- mothers with children between the ages of 1 and 2, for example.
The state also sped up the time it took to be kicked-off welfare.
Four months into the new plan 575 fewer families are on the books.
That's a troubling number to Dick Green.
The former Republican state Senator and current co-chair of the Governor's TANF Advisory Council wants to know what a lot of low-income advocates want to know- where are those people now.
"...what our concern is if we are scaring away people who could be eligible from coming in to participate, our concern is that there are children out there who are not being served. It's not like we are looking for business, we just want to make sure that the children are not being slighted b/c of a process which has become so difficult."
Green says if people aren't applying for state assistance there's a good chance they are showing up at local welfare offices around the state.
But according to the local welfare administrators association, no city or town has reported a sharp spike in welfare claims.
While some advocates wring their hands over the drop, welfare director Terry Smith says the change was expected.
"Given that's what happened in welfare reform in the 1990's. I would have been surprised if something like that didn't happen this time as well. It is probably a natural sort of caseload adjustment."
"what we are seeing now can't be compared to what we saw when TANF was implemented in 1997..."
That's Mary Anne Broshek who previously ran the state's welfare program.
"...we were still seeing lots of caseload decreases b/c of a better economy. And people finding jobs....the two can simply not be compared."
Broshek says the state hasn't experienced an economic boom remotely similar to the one from the mid-90's.
Also this time around, she says the state has seen a greater drop in the overall percentage of cases.
Broshek quickly adds that it's too soon to draw any firm conclusions, but is eager to receive data from HHS in a week or two.
Full text available at New Hampshire Public Radio
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MN - State might create jobs to meet new welfare rules
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Thursday, January 25 @ 10:20:17 EST by emohan
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More than 2,400 hard-to-employ welfare recipients could find themselves in taxpayer-subsidized positions, pushing paper in nonprofit offices or serving snacks in after-school programs as Minnesota tries to meet tougher federal welfare-to-work rules.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty's budget earmarks $3.2 million over the next two years to create positions for welfare recipients who haven't been able to hold jobs.
The subsidized jobs are part of a plan that includes accounting shifts and stricter penalties for those who won't work. The state aims to get half the parents on the Minnesota Family Investment Program working 30 hours a week, 20 hours if they have young children.
If they don't, Minnesota could lose $13.5 million in federal funding tied to this year's numbers.
"People who aren't active or only doing a few hours of activity in a given week — that's not meeting the new standard," said Chuck Johnson, assistant commissioner of children and family services at the Department of Human Services.
Counties and tribes would compete for state grants to create short-term positions designed to build job skills and resumes. The ultimate goal would be to help welfare recipients land jobs on the open market.
Almost all the positions would be unpaid — which drew howls of protest from advocates.
"To us, it's slave labor," said Linden Gawboy of the Welfare Rights Committee, a Minneapolis group that frequently pickets the Capitol for more generous welfare benefits. "If there's a job to be done, make it into a real job and then we won't have to be on welfare."
States are under pressure to get more welfare recipients working since the federal government tightened its rules in October and stopped giving states credit for reduced welfare-to-work caseloads going back to 1996.
Subsidized work placements don't help welfare recipients get better private-sector jobs unless they come with child care, job counseling and other support, said Jack Tweedie, a welfare expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Tweedie said Washington state has a successful transitional job program, but it's expensive. Other programs haven't worked as well.
"They're just as likely to get a job after being in some training program," he said.
All Minnesota welfare recipients get child care, work counseling and job-search support.
Tweedie said an early analysis anticipated states would create lots of subsidized positions to get welfare recipients working. But most states have found that strategy to be too costly to implement widely. Instead, more states are using accounting shifts and sanctions to boost their work participation numbers, he said.
Under the new rules, just a third of Minnesota's caseload is working — about 4,400 of the 14,300 families enrolled in the Minnesota Family Investment Program.
Full text available at the St. Paul Pioneer Press
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NH - Lawmakers to revisit rushed welfare reform
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Wednesday, January 03 @ 09:13:29 EST by emohan
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Lawmakers who feel they were rushed into decisions last spring want to revisit changes made to the state's welfare system.
But others say it's too early to tell whether the state should tweak how it provides aid to needy families because the program has run only a few months.
"It is time to let the program go forward and see if it is working," said Rep. James MacKay, R-Concord, former vice chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee.
The system may be imperfect, but the state had to act, he said. The state could have lost $4 million in federal funding had it not met new federal requirements that call for having at least 50 percent of welfare recipients working or in job training.
The package of reforms passed at the urging of Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen set in place a series of quick, tough sanctions for aid recipients who don't comply with work requirements. Mothers must start working after their child's first birthday, compared to the two years they used to get.
Terry Smith, director of the state's Division of Family Assistance, said the threat of sanctions is working well. Before, 70 percent of welfare recipients used to skip orientation meeting, now 70 percent attend the meetings.
But Sen. Iris Estabrook, D-Durham, said the bill that passed in May was a rush job.
"We were running to meet a deadline," said Estabrook, who will chair the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
She said she remains concerned about finding affordable child care for young mothers going back to work, providing transportation for those without cars and making housing more affordable.
Full text available at the Boston Globe
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Private firms try to connect eligible poor with welfare benefits
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Thursday, December 28 @ 10:23:10 EST by emohan
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Celeste Molina needed some food stamps when she visited a Columbus food bank this summer. She ended up with more welfare benefits than she knew she could get.
Second Harvest Food Bank volunteers showed her a new Internet-based model called the Benefit Bank to help her apply for child care for her two children and to file her federal income taxes.
"I knew they had a food pantry, but then people learn they can get hooked up to Job and Family Services," said Molina, 24, who has since gone off food stamps and found a receptionist's job paying $7.25 an hour. "Suddenly, they're giving me information I didn't know."
Over the last three years, a handful of companies have developed secure-Internet software to make one-stop welfare benefits screening and applications available in at least a dozen states. Likened to Web-based tax-preparation services such as TurboTax, they are becoming trusted tools for charitable organizations and advocacy groups that serve the poor. The high-tech aids also are gaining some favor with several state and local governments.
Government agencies are still responsible for approving the applications. But armed with laptop computers and special Internet access codes, advocates and volunteers can take over the initial screening, data entry and clerical work that normally tie up public welfare offices and take time away from casework.
Volunteers set up with their computers at food pantries, churches, health clinics and other places where low-income residents come for help and ask potential clients if they want to learn if they're eligible for benefits. If the process shows a participant is eligible, the computer program fills out multiple government forms automatically and prints them for the person to take to a state welfare office.
Some companies are in negotiations with state and county agencies to eventually file forms electronically, eliminating the need for participants to hand-deliver forms.
"We're seeing the beginnings of change in the way states and nonprofits do business," said Stacy Dean, director of Food Assistance Policy at the Washington think-tank the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "This is a growing approach to reaching the nonparticipating people."
Too many poor people don't collect the benefits they're eligible for, advocates say, often because of embarrassment over taking welfare, trouble getting information or a lack of time. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service reported that 40 percent of those eligible for food stamps don't receive them, and the rate is higher — 49 percent — among working poor, who must find time during business hours to register
Full text available at the Middletown Journal
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Life Just Got Harder for Welfare Moms
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Monday, December 18 @ 09:21:40 EST by emohan
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Stiffer work and reporting requirements for the federal welfare program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, fail to recognize mothers' needs for training, education and child care to make their families self sufficient, women's advocacy groups say.
"The new regulations are a continuation of the misguided 'work first' approach that has been the hallmark of welfare reform," says Erin Mohan, public policy director for Washington-based advocacy organization, Women Work! "This strategy forces women into low-wage, low-skilled, dead-end jobs; jobs that don't pay the bills and can't support families."
In order to qualify for TANF, an adult head of household with children must prove she has insufficient means to pay for rent, food and utilities.
Before the latest regulations announced in June, states had leeway in deciding what constituted the 30 hours of work-related activities required of recipients by welfare legislation enacted in 1996. (Twenty of those hours had to qualify as "core" and 10 as "indirect.")
Some states, for instance, allowed career training and university-degree programs to qualify as employment-related activity.
The new regulations, which took effect Oct. 1, either restrict those activities, put new time limits on them or require new levels of monitoring.
"Many of the states who defined work activities more broadly in the past were taking reasonable and responsible steps to address the substantial barriers to employment that women on welfare face," says Mohan.
Women's advocacy groups point to lack of education, job training and access to health and child care as the most common barriers to financial independence. Domestic violence, lack of suitable living conditions and language limitations can also hinder efforts at self-sufficiency.
Full text available at AlterNet
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KY - State Begins Issuing Payments through Debit Cards
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Thursday, December 14 @ 12:07:14 EST by emohan
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Child support customers and child care providers who get state funding to serve low-income families may find it easier to secure their funds, thanks to a new debit card program introduced recently by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services’ Department for Community Based Services.
DCBS has partnered with U.S. Bank to launch the ReliaCard Visa debit card. The card is available to child support recipients and child care providers whose clients include families benefiting from the state’s Child Care Assistance Program.
“Electronic payment helps customers have quicker access to their own money,” CHFS Secretary Mark D. Birdwhistell said. “I’m proud that our staff continues to implement improvements such as this that ease the process for Kentuckians served by our programs.”
Payments that previously arrived by check will be directly deposited into customers’ accounts. With the card, customers can withdraw cash or make purchases everywhere Visa debit cards are accepted.
“The card makes it more convenient for our customers to access payments and reduces the possibility of a lost or stolen check,” said Tom Emberton Jr., acting undersecretary for Children and Family Services and commissioner of DCBS, the agency that oversees the divisions of child care and child support. Payments can be made faster, and check-cashing fees are eliminated, he said.
The cards save the state money as well, Emberton said. Electronic payments are easier to process and they eliminate the monthly cost of printing and replacing paper checks.
Clients will receive information about the transition by mail. Customers who don’t prefer the debit card may choose direct deposit into a personal bank account.
The Division of Child Care’s rollout began in August and included Boyle, Fayette and Owen counties. The statewide rollout was completed in October.
Full text available at WBKO
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CA - S.J. must move more off welfare
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Tuesday, December 12 @ 08:58:30 EST by emohan
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San Joaquin County stands to lose millions of dollars in grants if officials do not get more welfare recipients into work programs and off the dole, the county's top social-services official told local lawmakers last week.
The county has to get at least 1,000 more of its estimated 14,000 welfare families involved in welfare-to-work programs to meet new federal requirements, Human Services Agency Director Joseph Chelli said.
Only 3,688 families receiving assistance are enrolled in work programs.
The state's welfare-to-work program, known as CalWORKs, includes job training and placement programs designed to wean recipients off public assistance.
The beefed-up requirements for participation in those programs are mandated by the federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.
States that do not meet the new standards could forfeit 1 percent to 5 percent of their annual funding, officials said.
California stands to lose as much as $360million unless half its adult welfare recipients and 90 percent of its two-parent CalWORKs families spend at least 32 hours per week working, volunteering or attending job training.
Oscar Ramirez, a spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said $187million of that penalty would be divided among counties that failed to meet similar requirements.
"If the county does meet the participation rate, they would not be subjected to the penalty," Ramirez said.
San Joaquin County received $106million for 2006-07, according to county budget documents.
Chelli unveiled a plan for increasing welfare-to-work participation during the county Board of Supervisors' regular meeting Tuesday.
The suggested strategies included seeking out those who are eligible but choose not to participate in work programs, and helping people who are involved increase output to meet the 32-hour weekly requirement.
Full text available at the Record
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