PA. to stop food stamps to anyone with more than $2,000 in assets (except house and some cars)

[JPZenger]

Last edited Fri Jan 13, 2012, 12:56 PM - Edit history (1)

http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=358245

"Pennsylvanians seeking food stamps will soon have to pass an asset test that state officials say is a way to weed out fraud but welfare advocates claim does more harm than good. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the asset test slated to take effect May 1 would bar anyone under 60 from receiving food stamps if they have more than $2,000 in savings or similar assets. The limit would be $3,250 for anyone over 60.

Houses and retirement benefits would be exempt but second cars with a value over $4,650 would count. The Department of Public Welfare tells the Inquirer the new policy will prevent someone from taking benefits if they have their own resources.

Critics say the new test hurts seniors and the newly unemployed while making it harder for the working poor to save enough to escape poverty."

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Remember folks that many people on food stamps do work - they just don't earn enough to support their families. In many parts of the state, two people in a household cannot work and cannot find a job unless they each have a reliable car. One of the main reasons for unemployment is when a person's car dies and they can't afford to replace it. The idea is particularly absurd because the Federal Government pays about $10 in food benefits for every dollar funded by the state. An asset test makes sense, particularly for someone with large liquid assets - but not for such a low amount.

Now, the Corbettites are proposing to make people use all of the emergency funds and sell their second car before they can get food assistance.

The entire Pa. share of the food stamp program could be funded with a reasonable gas extraction tax - which the legislature has delayed for THREE YEARS.
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Phil Inquirer article on this topic:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120110_Pennsylvania_to_impose_asset_test_for_food_stamps.html?cmpid=124488489

"Critics of the DPW plan say it would particularly punish elderly people saving for their burials, poor people trying to save enough money to get out of poverty, and working- and middle-class people who lost their jobs in the recession and may now have to liquidate assets to feed their families.

Pennsylvania receives about $2.5 billion in federal SNAP funds annually and pays about $160 million annually in state money to maintain the program. In Pennsylvania, people can access SNAP if they make 160 percent of the federal poverty level or less. For a family of four, the poverty level is $22,350. Currently 35 states, including New Jersey, have gotten rid of asset tests, many of them during the recession, when so many working- and middle-class people have been falling into poverty, antipoverty experts say.

"I'm very pessimistic about our ability to meet people's needs," Clark said. "This will be a mind-boggling, self-inflicted wound. It makes no compassionate, political, or economic sense." For many elderly especially, $3,250 in the bank serves as "the poor man's medical insurance," Clark said.

That sounds about right, said Doris Gray, 72, a divorced, college-educated former graphic artist from Mount Airy with a heart condition who gets $200 a month in food stamps. Rent, insurance, and medical costs are more than her $1,079 monthly Social Security check. She relies on $14,000 in savings to survive, but Gray estimates it will be depleted in two years. But before that - as of May 1, if the DPW plan holds - her food stamps will be gone. "It means I'll have to give up paying for my health insurance," she said. "I can't afford food and insurance. "I feel panic, dismay, and bewilderment. The state doesn't understand that there are so many of us people living on the edge."

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Essay: A Christian Response to Corbett's Food Stamp Cuts

http://itsonlyanorthernblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/christian-response-to-gov-corbetts-plan.html
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People will have to hit rock bottom before they can eat.

[Scuba]

1. Why does Las Vegas have penny slots?

Because they want ALL your money.

[JPZenger]

2. More discussion on this topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101421991#post11

I am not saying there shouldn't be some limit on assets - but $2,000 is ridiculously low and makes people set up for a loss of job if they need a car repair, or bankruptcy for a medical bill.

There is real fraud - go after that, and not someone with a basic emergency fund.

It sounds like this change was not intended to become known by the public - the Inquirer only found out because someone slipped them a copy of a letter to the feds.

[JPZenger]

3. More info and discussion on this topic

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/10/1053360/-Pennsylvania-decides-to-cut-off-food-stamp-recipients-based-on-31-year-old-restrictions-on-assets
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http://www.newpittsburghcourieronline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6222:proposed-change-in-eligibility-rules-endangers-food-stamps-for-170000-pennsylvanians&catid=39:national&Itemid=2

Excerpts:

"John Manton is struggling to hang on unemployed, without health insurance, worried about keeping his home. He’s now also concerned that proposed changes to eligibility requirements for food stamps will leave him worried about something else: putting food on the table. He receives about $37 a week in food stamps toward food bills that average about $51 a week. That assistance would vanish for Manton and about 170,000 other Pennsylvanians under a proposed change in rules that would require food stamp recipients to pass an asset test. Under the proposal, seniors and individuals on disability would lose their benefits if they have assets valued at $3,000 or more, excluding their primary residence and personal property. For everyone else, the cut-off would be $2,000.

“I have about $3,000 in the bank,” he said, noting that he was keeping the money for emergencies and large expenses. “Twenty-five hundred dollars is earmarked for the new real estate tax plus I owe another $835 for the homeowners insurance.” Unemployed since April, Manton lives on $195 a week in unemployment benefits. His last day on the job at a legal services company, a position he had for more than three years, was April 29. He’s been looking for work ever since.

He feels he needs to hang on to a little bit of money. “What people have in the bank is all they have in the bank and $3,000 is not a lot of money,” he said. “If you go the hospital for some emergency, they want $385 for the ER plus the doctor’s fee, plus the tests, plus whatever else they do to you. So, you’re talking $900 right there just to go to the hospital. Suppose your pipes burst? You have to have a little bit of money to fall back on.” But, that little nest egg would bar him from getting food stamps if the new rules are approved.

The change could be put in place as early as March. The department has the authority needed to make the changes without approval from the state legislature. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the food stamp program, does need to sign off on the plan, something Horstmann said she expected to happen."

[JPZenger]

4. Good column in City Paper

http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity/PA-declares-war-on-food-stamps.html

Excerpts:

" 'We all know that families need to save money to get off government assistance and achieve self-sufficiency,” according to a press release from Carey Morgan, Executive Director of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger. “So it’s not only inhumane, but counterproductive to force people to drain their savings before they can get any help. Someone with less than $2,000 in the bank would easily be wiped out by one visit to the emergency room.”

There was a time not too long ago when even Republicans seemed to support the food stamp program.

How quickly things change — for the uglier and more racist. Newt Gingrich frequently calls Obama the “food stamp president” and Rick Santorum has declared, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.” In April, House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) proposed cutting $127 billion from the food stamp program. This is all motivated by a powerful idea: it is poor people's fault that they are poor, and they should be punished for it. And though the program is stigmatized as a handout to urban blacks, whites make up a far greater share of recipients."

[Curmudgeoness]

6. If I were in a position to need food stamps

and saw this coming, there would be not record of my assets---except my house (deed) and car (titled). They will only know about money in savings if you leave it in a bank.

Of course, this could leave a lot of people with too much cash in their garden, but I see no other options. At least you will get about the same amount of interest in the garden right now.

I hate this one-size-fits-all kind of requirement. No room of your circumstances.

But what did I expect from a Republican controlled state!

[durablend]

9. Can they still "find it" though?

I guess you wouldn't be lying if you said there was no money in a bank account (could they trace that it WAS there?) and if you stuff it in/under something it's technically not "cash-on hand" (since you'd have to dig for it)

[Curmudgeoness]

11. The wealthy find ways to do this all the time.

They hide their assets all the time, and there has to be a way to do it for us poor smucks. They certainly cannot prove you have it if it is not in a bank or other traceable asset. But you are right, they can trace that it WAS in the bank. If it was much money, it could be a problem. If it is no significant, I am sure there are things you can explain it away.

I would preplan a funeral and pay for it if I were in the retired situation, since this is one of the big reasons older people feel the need for some money stashed. Property taxes could be prepaid if you own property. I would pay off all debts, if I had any---and that might even include debts to family and friends. And I would be taking the money out of the bank slowly instead of all at once so it isn't obvious. There just has to be ways if you really are in a troubled situation. I do not believe that someone should be indigent or close to homeless before they can get some help to eat.

With that said, I am also not interested in having people of substantial means getting food stamps just because they think that they deserve it----and I do know people like this. My opinion is that they are taking food from people who really need it.

[JPZenger]

7. Remember many laid off people are not eligible for unemployment insurance

There are millions of people who work but are not eligible for unemployment insurance if they are laid off. The lay off may occur suddenly. These people would have no income, but they have to fall within a few steps of becoming homeless before they can get food aid.

This is a complete change. The food aid was always the easiest government benefit to obtain because it was the humanitarian thing to do. If a person has serious problems, they go to a social worker or a human service agency, and the person says: I can't get you cash assistance, there is a long waiting list for housing assistance, there is too much delay in getting your disability claim processed, but at least I can make sure you don't starve."

Now, they starve, and have to choose between their medicines and their food.

Whatever happened to compassionate conservatism.

And worst off - it won't even save PA. money. The food aid is from the Feds, the state will have HIGHER administrative costs to turn poor people upside down to check for change in their pockets.

[JPZenger]

8. Article: Corbett Change Called Heartless

http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/food-stamps-asset-test-condemned-as-idiotic-heartless-1.1256186#ixzz1jAuaDF9d

from the Scranton PA. Times-Tribune

"The condemnation from area social service providers was as swift as it was universal as the state Department of Public Welfare confirmed Tuesday it plans to deny food stamps to otherwise income-eligible people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings and other assets. A limit of $3,250 would be set for those over 60.

"It's stupid, idiotic and, quite honestly, heartless," said Gary Drapek, president of the United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne counties. "I can't understand it. I can't understand the rationale behind it."

He and other critics decried the policy as another unwarranted assault by Gov. Tom Corbett's administration on the state's working poor and struggling seniors - one that will further stress an already flimsy safety net.

"My immediate reaction was: Who is advising the governor on this?" said Monsignor Joseph P. Kelly, executive director of Catholic Social Services. "I mean, this is terrible public policy. Do we really not want to feed people in the United States of America?"

[MrMickeysMom]

12. It IS terrible public policy...

It's bad enough the people in PA who are eligible for SNAP program don't follow through with the long process (pages and pages) to qualify. NOW, there's more reason to believe they won't.

We have one of the lowest fraud rates (1/10th of 1%, I read) in this state. Just in Allegheny County, we underserve thousands who should be reached. Can you imagine what this can do to areas outside the MSA?

Tom Corbet and company should be ridden out of the Commonwealth on a rail and dumped into a rural setting without a job and no resources to see what it means to survive in during the next year.

Bastards.

[blue neen]

13. Yeah, Corbett certainly doesn't look like he is starving, does he?

He could probably live on his fat reserves for quite awhile.

Heartless, soulless bastards.

[JPZenger]

10. Good Phila. Daily News Editorial on this Issue

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20120112_DN_Editorial__Pa__s_asset_test_for_food_stamps_is_a_big__costly_mistake.html

[JPZenger]

14. Some satire in response to food stamp cuts and other happenings

This satire is in response to the food stamp cuts and other happenings, in tribute to the great satirist Jonathan Swift. Swift was an Irish minister and writer who was commenting upon the English attitude towards the poor Irish in the 1700s.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/11/1053716/-A-Modest-Proposal-for-preventing-the-poor-people-in-PA-from-being-a-burden-on-their-State-(satire)?via=blog_601165#comments