Welfare Aid Isn’t Growing as Economy Drops Off

[Fireweed247]

Despite soaring unemployment and the worst economic crisis in decades, 18 states cut their welfare rolls last year, and nationally the number of people receiving cash assistance remained at or near the lowest in more than 40 years...

Michigan cut its welfare rolls 13 percent, though it was one of two states whose October unemployment rate topped 9 percent. Rhode Island, the other, had the nation’s largest welfare decline, 17 percent. Of the 12 states where joblessness grew most rapidly, eight reduced or kept constant the number of people receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the main cash welfare program for families with children....

The deepening recession offers a fresh challenge to the program, which was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996 amid bitter protest and became one of the most closely watched social experiments in modern memory.

The program, which mostly serves single mothers, ended a 60-year-old entitlement to cash aid, replacing it with time limits and work requirements, and giving states latitude to discourage people from joining the welfare rolls. While it was widely praised in the boom years that followed, skeptics warned it would fail the needy when times turned tough.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/us/02welfare.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1

[OhioChick]

1. K&R

:kick:

[jwirr]

2. The time to watch for its failure is when the unemployment runs out.

You cannot collect both at the same time.

[Fireweed247]

3. Michael Moore talked about the welfare to work program in Bowling for Columbine

The parent would be bused out of town, spending two hours a day on the bus and unable to watch their children. One child ended up staying with a relative and finding a gun...brought it to school and killed another 6 year old.

[Tindalos]

4. How can they cut funding for welfare

and then turn around and give billions to companies who just waste it on personal jets and bonuses? They know what they're doing. They know there are no jobs for the people they cut. They know those families have nowhere else to go. It's so inhuman. It just pisses me off.

[dflprincess]

5. Makes you wonder why we don't hear the Repukes

ranting about "welfare queens" now that it turns out they're all on Wall Street.

On the other hand, Governor Timmy "the tool" Pawlenty wants to make drastic cuts in state health care programs and, conveniently the local paper had an article about people who are hiding assets to get state health assistance. No doubt in an effort to make people think only "welfare cheats" will be cut from the programs. Meanwhile, Timmy absolutely refuses to hear any talk of raising income taxes on the wealthy AND he wants to cut corporate taxes in half, because that will do so much to help the $5 billion deficit.

[Tindalos]

7. Their "welfare queens" actually DO drive cadillacs

They're living the stereotype they blame on others. Yet, most people believe the Repug story despite the reality they see around them. It feels like we're living in an alternate reality. Nothing makes sense anymore.

[Ardent15]

6. I agree

It's disgusting.

[Tindalos]

8. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[Azlady]

9. Kick & Recommend

[Fireweed247]

10. another

:kick: