Bush administration to issue sweeping new rules to Curb Welfare Rolls

[dajoki]

NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/washington/28welfare.html?ex=1309147200&en=bff33370335ac43c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

New Rules Force States to Curb Welfare Rolls

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: June 28, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 27 — The Bush administration plans to issue sweeping new rules on Wednesday that will require states to move much larger numbers of poor people from welfare to work.

The rules, drafted in response to a budget signed into law by President Bush in February, represent the biggest changes in welfare policy since 1996, when Congress abolished the federal guarantee of cash assistance for the nation's poorest children.

Since then, the number of welfare recipients has plunged more than 60 percent, to 4.4 million people, from 12.2 million. Most of the decline occurred in the first years, before the 2001 recession. Federal and state officials say they expect the new rules to speed the decline in welfare rolls, which has slowed in recent years.

The rules are far more than a bureaucratic application of the new law, passed after four years of partisan deadlock. For the first time, they set a uniform definition for permissible work activities and require states to verify and document the number of hours worked by welfare recipients.

Nationally, in 2004, the last year for which official figures are available, about 32 percent of adults on welfare were working. Under the new rules, 50 percent of adult welfare recipients must be engaged in work or training in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, or states will face financial penalties. The penalties can reduce a state's federal welfare grant by 5 percent in the first year and by two additional percentage points for each subsequent year of noncompliance, up to a maximum penalty of 21 percent.

[applegrove]

1. That's what they'll run on in the election. They'll make it sound like

they will force people to "have jobs" by law. And to the unemployed or under-employed.. it will sound like "they are going to get me a job".

It has happened before. Neocons have run elections on this issue. And it sounds good to people who desperately want a good job. Except they jobs they have to take are the same ones available to them today.

IMHO

[azurnoir]

2. sorry but have you ever

dealt with these people (welfare Dept's or workers). I did for a short time in the late '90's. It is more likely that this is why the minimum wage was not raised. Employer's know they are dealing with a "forced labor" group, in a way these people are as vulnerably as illegal immigrants. The major employer's at the so called job fairs are janitorial companies and restaurants (bus people and dishwashers), I've heard supervisors in both say they love to hire these women because "they will do anything, to keep a job".Thinking about getting a GED or job training in my state (MN) you have to work 25 to 30 hours a week to do that then go to school- a single mother would have to have her kids in day-care 60-80 hours a week to accommodate that. This program is not about getting people out of poverty, it is about changing the type of poverty they live in and very possibly about suppressing wages and workers rights and benefits overall.

[kineneb]

3. exactly

the jobs available will never "lift" the workers out of poverty. In fact, working may make people poorer, especially if they make just enough to kick them off of health care assistance. One illness, not covered, and they are back where they were, or even worse off.

Been there. I reduced the hours I worked to qualify for health care, since Hubby is on insulin and was heading towards kidney failure. I now work for cash only, so he can continue to receive Medicaid (Medi-cal). If we exceede the income allowence by one dollar, he could lose the Part D coverage he has.

[Erika]

4. W's America

His tax cuts for the rich are paid for by social services cuts to the needy. And W calls himself a Christian.

[flaminbats]

15. government that gives orders..but never a helping hand

Republicans love to argue that healthcare would be rationed under universal healthcare, but they don't mind denying medical care and financial assistance to those who need it most. They want people on welfare to work, but only to take away critical medical coverage and support for those who do!

For the prolife Republican..welfare is another word for warfare, nailing the disabled and sick to a cross just to enjoy every minute of the suffering for a fellow human being. Ave Caesar imperator, morituri te salutant :sarcasm:

[applegrove]

5. I agree that is not what cutting welfare is about. It isn't about better

jobs for anyone. But they will make it sound that way. Look into the Mike Harris "Common Sense Revolution" (he was a neocon elected in Ontario in 1995). They sold the same bag of lies to the unemployed as this.

Some people.. who really want a job...will think it means the government is mandated to find them a job and they assume it is a good one. So they vote that way "I'm going to get a job with this guy!" "He wants me to work!" "They'll force employers a great plants to hire more people!".

That is what I am saying. This is a wedge. Been used before. Appeals to selfish angry elites.. and underemployed or unemployed. Or people nervous about finding work "they'll get me a job!".

I'm saying only beware of the wedge and education people as to the realities of workfare..

[AzDar]

7. Spot-on, azurnoir. n/t

[applegrove]

10. That's the reality. The triangulation for the GOP base.. at least the poor

who will be mostly affected by such workfare policy.. is that somehow.. somewhere.. they will get a really great job out of the deal. They will see a job in their future. That is how it worked in the Ontario election. I can't tell you how many people came up to me and said "this conservative government in Ontario (circa 1995) is going to get me a job. I'm voting for them". The reality hit just a few short months when welfare was cut.. quickly.. and not within a timeframe that would allow people to do anything but run away for leases.. cause they could no longer afford to pay. And then they had a bad name. It was massive disruption of the most sadistic kind. And people got hurt.

Sounds like Bush is planning to take a page out of Mike Harris' book.

[Toots]

6. 95% of all those on Welfare are single Mothers

Republicans want Mothers to stay at home and raise their kids unless they are Single Moms. Then they want them to abandon their kids and work forty hours a week while their kids do ????????.Real Compassion on display here.

[Javaman]

8. moron* isn't turning the clock back to the 1950's, he's* turning it back

to the 1850's. Welcome to the slavery class. Otherwise known as the working poor in this country.

colossal racist chickenhawk have-mores failure*

[Doctor_J]

9. Why doesn he get to "issue rules"?

I thought in ths country if you wanted a law passed, you wrote it, sent it to Congress, on then it was voted on. Is it fascism yet?

[butterfly77]

11. Where' s the work...

and will they pay above minimum wage, hypocritical asses!

[applegrove]

12. They claim it will come with the law. But really.. if they do it like they

did it in Ontario.. they will institute the cutback in shelter allowance in June and have Dday (where they people have to have moved out of their old apartment by Fall.

It will hurt.

[butterfly77]

14. The dirty bastards...

Everyday I hope for divine intervention as it pertains senators who run to produce more evil, the hope is for fifty percent to lose their seats and to feel what most americans feel as it pertains to joblessness,homelessness,hunger, healthcare and anything else that lets them know and feel what others do.

[applegrove]

16. It used to be that those who fed, and worked the farms and fought

the wars of the establishment.. got a little health care or something for it.

I don't see how they hope for this to continue. Like this. They cannot honestly think it will last .. "and by then we will all be dead".

I don't think a country can be healthy without entrepreneurs and a fair tax system that taxes everyone.. but none over 50%. I think this class warfare will come back and bite them in the ass.

I mean the yoke of secrecy and contempt. The bullying. The attacks. It is hard enough to face that in life. But civilly. Like the regulations the corporations have complained about have been put on the human beings instead. Which is quite the projection. The humans in America must be shut up. The humans in America must be told what to say or what not to say. It must be terrible for all the people in the USA. I doubt anyone is happier. Everyone's life has been diminished by the power grap and grandiosity.

I wish you all peace. And know that the hardest part is the grieving and acceptance that your world has been changed. And once you do that. You are okay. Angry & afraid.. but accepting it. You just have to lend a hand to help the others..fight with the peace within you. And you know then.. that you shall overcome.



It may generate another whole generation of depression era babies. Who know how tough life gets with

[dajoki]

17. Ifeel the same way...

but it'll never happen, those bastards are set for life.

[gratuitous]

13. Paris Hilton needs another tax cut

"Sorry about you and your kids, ma'am, but we can't give Paris Hilton several million more dollars AND feed you, so we had to make a choice."

GOP compassion in action.