Policies that Actually Promote Self-Sufficiency
Published June 26, 2009 @ 11:00AM PT
The Boston Globe ran an editorial yesterday chiding the state for policies that deny the working poor real opportunities to move off public assistance. Published to coincide with the release of a new report by the Massachusetts Asset Development Commission, the editorial highlighted the reality that almost 50% of state residents are considered asset-poor - i.e., they have less than 3 months worth of financial security should they lose a job or income stream. Despite this, many poverty programs in Mass - and nationwide - penalize recipients if they earn beyond an arbitrary baseline amount, spend money on things like education, or own a car worth more than a certain value. The Commission's report identifies this as the "cliff effect"
"whereby working people reach a wage threshold and are precipitously cut off from benefits. These people are working hard at difficult jobs; they shouldn’t have to choose between reaching for a better life and losing support programs that make working possible."
Seriously - isn't this common sense?
If we want our fellow Americans "off the dole," as my dad would say, why aren't we equipping them with the opportunities and tools to do so? In Massachusetts, with budget cuts, we've actually made it harder than ever for low-income residents to do this. In California, in contrast, the House recently passed a bill that lifts many of the asset and savings maximums for households on public assistance - allowing poor families to save and accumulate more, and saving the state about $3M in admin costs in the process.
As mentioned earlier this week, matched savings programs are a major, I'd say permanent, trend in our 21st century anti-poverty policy. We want low-income Americans banked and we want them building assets like their middle-class counterparts. What can we say, we're a consumerist, market-oriented culture. But our government programs need to embrace and keep up with this reality, and we need to make these programs more viable and rewarding over the long-term. We've only ourselves to blame for others' poverty if we fail to support these programs.
(Photo of old WPA adult ed program by The New Ruffian)
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Comments (7)
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Author
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Leigh is a PhD candidate in urban planning at MIT, and a consultant on U.S. Gulf Coast recovery. She sits on the Board of the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation in Boston, and has worked with non-profits, foundations and local governments on policies and programs aimed at reducing urban poverty and inequality.
Featured Poverty in America Actions
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Repeal the Hyde Amendment!
88 People
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Repeal the Hyde Amendment!
This is what I have clumsily tried to say in several comments Leigh. I guess that's why You're the writer. Massachusetts calls it's welfare transitional assistance, but there is no transition. I have met people Who would like to go back to work but are afraid of having no health insurance. I have met people Who stay at a job They hate just because it has health insurance. I have met people Who need a little extra help until They can get a little saved for a car, or nursing classes, whatever. With the state it's off or on, nothing in between. There are many stories, and I think We need Our program to be a little more custom made.
Posted by Charlie Reed on 06/26/2009 @ 06:35PM PT
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We as a proud american nation have left ourselves to the assumption that it only takes one job to offer the financial support that is needed to sustain an affordable life-style. This assumption has not been negated as the efforts to sustain employment pushes those now unemployed to becoming over-all work influenced, well rounded employees.
Knowning how to network has become the actual rate of success during these trying times.
Posted by Aaron Shaw on 06/27/2009 @ 10:15AM PT
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A policy to promote self-sufficiency
http://www.youtube.com/user/BeHelpfulNotHurtful
Be Helpful, Not Hurtful
Posted by Charles Hancock on 06/27/2009 @ 12:08PM PT
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We CANNOT promote self-sufficiency if everything that a person in poverty does, once they so much as apply for help, results in inquisitions and penalties because the applicable agency hears rumors of an asset, sales of an asset, a gift of above an applicable limit or (and this is the one that really stumps me) WORKING and thus EARNING too much in income well before that income is enough to live upon. If welfare is meant to be TEMPORARY, then we need to actively ENCOURAGE people to make steps toward self-sufficiency. This would mean things like working more hours, working better jobs, getting educations, having a car if possible (and, in the individual or family's situation, also appropriate) etc. because they help those on welfare or other types of assistance work towards getting OFF of the assistance. As long as we continue to cut assistance far faster than a person or family can reach self-sufficiency, people will be loathe to leave welfare and the related programs because they know leaving won't work. I know that for myself and my husband to leave our combination of "assistance programs" we'd need a combined annual income of $90K as of our last estimate and that was figured BEFORE some of my conditions - and his latest cardiovascular conditions - were diagnosed. Even conservative estimates (meaning healthier families) stilled to go from welfare to a salary in the mid-$30Ks as of the early 90s just to match what you'd get as a CA resident as a single parent with 2 kids. In either case, to go from years on assistance to such a job - directly - what are the odds even in a GOOD economy? And those who do leave without realizing such often soon realize that they're not making enough to be self-sufficient and it doesn't take long to drift back onto the assistance programs simply for survival. This isn't a failure of the impoverished in any way - it's a set of systemic and policy failures.
Besides, policy wonks need to start looking at the "costs" beyond "budgetary" or "financial" costs. After all, the assistance programs and how they're funded and run also carry things measure in HUMAN costs. It might look nice on paper to balance a budget by cutting $3B or whatever from a state budget by tightening welfare rules, but those who make those rules and budgets need to remember that those cuts and new rules very easily may mean thousands of people of all ages going without meals (or even having to beg for food to have any at all), losing very necessary medical care, and being at risk of (if not actually) homeless - things which ultimately cost MORE in the long run and which, in all fairness and honesty are violations of human rights.
Posted by Danetta Amschler on 06/27/2009 @ 09:17PM PT
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After attempting to leave 6 times, I finally left my abusive husband. Yes you are right, the assistance programs are the problem. Not only are you talked to as if you caused the problem, but they really don't care to help you. Why is it that women and children are in poverty when the fathers of these children are getting by with no or little child support? Until we as a society pay women equal wages and give them a hand up we will be a society of rich and poor. Walk a mile in the shoes of a person nickeled and dimed and see why they can't get out of poverty. It's the system man.
Posted by Mary Ann Thompson on 06/29/2009 @ 03:17PM PT
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Exactly.
Reach a certain point and it's like trying to hold on when you're at the top of something steep and incredibly slippery (say, sanded smooth and coated in ice) over what's basically a pit - things are so hard, help so hard to get (until you hit the bottom of the pit) and most people (including many of the people and agencies supposedly there TO help) want mostly to cast suspicion and judgment and effectively kick you while you're down. Heaven forbid anyone can find anything that they can say you did that "contributed to" or "caused" the situation.
Like in my case, I "should have had insurance" - yeah, like insurance companies issue worthwhile policies at affordable rates to people with chronic conditions or known disabilities (our best quote was almost our entire month's income, atrociously expensive to use and didn't cover most of the sorts of care I'd have needed). Or I should have stayed working - like that's possible at all for me without access to care which I can't get under the current system without being rated disabled so I can keep Medicare. So now I (and my by now also disabled spouse) are kept BELOW the federal poverty line - and yet various agencies twist rules and numbers to say we "CAN" afford things as expensive as the thousands of dollars per year of my medical copays under Medicare by declaring us two families of one. Then too there's the completely out of touch nature of the federal poverty line itself...
Posted by Danetta Amschler on 06/29/2009 @ 05:29PM PT
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I hate the words self sufficiency If I never Hear them again it will be too soon. It places blame on those paid less than required to Survive. Employers Should be shamed until they are paying enough for all there workers to survive.
President Woodrow Wilson said something long ago which needs repeating and practice. "You are not here merely to make a living. You are here, in order to enable the world to live more amply,with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish your self if you forget that."
I do not here those words myself. I read them on page 149 in "21 >surprisingly simple< Steps to a Great Life by Dr.Steve Stephens.
Think on it a world where their is NO Poverty,Because humanity final values people, we value all work.
We end poverty so not only do those listed as poor, or even asset poor, will end there suffer. We end it also, that Our selves and our children never suffer.
Ask not How I may become rich? Ask How I can make everyone else richer.
Posted by jan Lightfootlane on 10/07/2009 @ 11:27AM PT
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