Many on welfare don’t comply with work rules

By Josh Sweigart

Dayton Daily News

Thousands of local welfare recipients are not complying with federal welfare-to-work rules that require people to work or train in order to get cash assistance, according to a Dayton Daily News analysis of state data. This mirrors a state trend that could draw hefty federal fines for Ohio.

Fewer than 20 percent of Montgomery County welfare recipients were working, volunteering, in job training or in other activities the law requires. Greene County has a tenth of the recipients, and a compliance rate of 41 percent.

Only 20 of Ohio’s 88 counties — and none in the Dayton area — met federal requirements, according to the most recent data available.

The rules state that at least half of able-bodied adults receiving cash assistance engage in work activities at least 30 hours a week.

State officials say they have a plan to address the problem. If they don’t, they’ll face $130 million in penalties from the federal government.

Montgomery County officials say they can and must meet the federal requirement.

“The first goal is to come into compliance with the federal requirements,” said Heath MacAlpine, assistant director of Montgomery County Job and Family Services.

The work requirement came with the 1996 federal welfare reforms, which led to the Ohio Works First program to provide cash benefits to eligible needy families for up to 36 months.

Ohio Works First provides a monthly cash benefit to about 214,000 Ohioans who earn no more than 50 percent of the federal poverty level. All recipients have children, and many earn less than $7,000 per year.

The state has failed to meet the work requirement and has been amassing federal penalties since 2007. It is one of only five states that failed to meet the standard in a 2009 comparison of states provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“The priority in recent years has been simply serving the large number of people who have been hit by recession,” MacAlpine said. With caseloads increasing, the emphasis was on providing financial support quickly and delaying work requirements.

Officials say that despite high unemployment, work requirements are achievable. To comply, able- bodied recipients can work, do community service or get job training for at least 30 hours a week.

States must show that at least 90 percent of two- parent households and at least 50 percent of all adults receiving cash assistance are working the required number of hours each week.

The state’s short-term plan to meet that goal is to add food stamp recipients who have jobs and aren’t on welfare to the welfare rolls. That will have the effect on paper of increasing the number of recipients who have jobs.

These people will get an extra $10 a month in food stamps, costing the state another $7 million. That plan expires in one year.

After that, local counties plan to have tougher requirements in place.

They say they will demand more from welfare recipients before cutting a check. They will hire additional hearing officers to speed up the process of ending benefits and launch a web-based system to help caseworkers track the hours recipients work.