(Vermont) In House vote on welfare limit, a right turn on a left issue

[FrodosPet]

http://vtdigger.org/2013/03/29/in-house-vote-on-welfare-limit-a-right-turn-on-a-left-issue/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-house-vote-on-welfare-limit-a-right-turn-on-a-left-issue

by Jon Margolis | March 29, 2013

After an hour of polite, but heartfelt debate, the overwhelmingly Democratic and largely liberal House of Representative of overwhelmingly Democratic and largely liberal Vermont declined Thursday to allow poor young mothers to stay on welfare for more than 60 months of their lives.

By a vote of 36 to 98, the House rejected an amendment to the omnibus appropriations bill proposed by Rep. John Moran of Wardsboro which would have exempted “able-to-work” recipients of “Reach Up” grants from a new 60-month lifetime limit if they “are in compliance with … Reach Up program regulations.”

The recipients, almost all of them young, unmarried mothers with small children would “receive comprehensive family development plan reviews every 90 days to identify and remove employment barriers.”

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In the debate, some of those Vermont Democrats, including some with reliably liberal voting records, argued that the time limits would end up being more beneficial to the young women than would staying on welfare indefinitely. The 60-month limit idea, one lawmaker said, “came from the Reach Up caseworkers themselves,” the people who know the recipients well and are working to help them.

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This is a bizarre article, saying that the real economic elite are more OK with welfare than liberals because it is cheaper than riots and maintains a subclass of working poor to draw from when times are good.

[FrodosPet]

1. Rossier: Thoughts on Reach Up-Vermont’s TANF program

http://vtdigger.org/2013/03/26/rossier-thoughts-on-reach-up-vermonts-tanf-program/

Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Jan Rossier, director of the Parent Child Center at Northeast Kingdom Community Action.

I am a director of a Parent Child Center that offers an array of services designed to support families receiving Reach Up and that works with them on a daily basis providing support around job skills, job coaching, strengthening soft skills and resume building, as well as providing educational support to obtain a high school diploma or GED. Our center also works closely with employers and the housing world, as well as provides some transportation. It takes these supports to keep families moving forward. The administration’s proposal of cutting off services when the economic status of the state is bleak, at best, doesn’t seem like a well thought out plan.

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Reach Up has had a successful track record in Vermont. About a third of the families receiving assistance actually receive their resources from a combination of employment and their Reach Up grant. Others pursue job skill enhancement or education in an effort to increase their skills with a goal of obtaining employment. When Vermont’s economy is good, the Reach Up caseload goes down; when the economy is bad, the caseload increases. Clearly the number of families seeking the support of the program is in direct correlation with the struggling economy.

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