Many depart state’s welfare rolls

Columbus Dispatch

State welfare rolls continue to nosedive — plunging by a third in the past year and a half — to the lowest number of Ohioans receiving a monthly assistance check in at least five decades.

About 75,000 have left the tax-funded, safety-net program, many kicked off as the state cracks down on those failing to meet federal requirements that they be working or training for a job to get help.

“Right now, Ohio is the star of caseload decline for no good reason,” said Liz Schott, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Ohio is among 11 states that failed to meet work requirements for 2007, and one of three currently at risk of penalty if they do not meet the goals. None have slashed their rolls to the extent Ohio has.

In the 15 years since sweeping welfare-to-work requirements were enacted, Ohio has never been at the forefront of caseload reduction. But the state’s aggressive approach to dodging millions in federal penalties has raised concern about the fallout on vulnerable families.

“To take families having greatest difficulties connecting to work and say we’re done with you, we’re not going to work with you, we’re going to cut you off, is walking away from the promise of welfare reform,” Schott said.

While Ohio’s economy has shown signs of improvement in recent months, advocates for the poor note that the poverty rate continues to climb.

“They are just tossing people off the rolls,” said Eugene R. King, director of the Ohio Poverty Law Center. “I don’t think for a minute anyone thinks there is a lower need for people needing benefits.”

Stepped-up enforcement of work and training requirements came at the direction of state officials hoping to keep federal welfare funding. Ohio will lose $130 million unless by Sept. 30 at least half of the adults on welfare, and 90 percent of those in two-parent households, are meeting the criteria.

The state is on track to hit the first mark, but likely will fall short on the other, said Michael B. Colbert, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

As of June, the most recent statistics available, Ohio was just shy of the requirement with 49 percent of adults meeting work-participation requirements, but still has a ways to go in two-parent households where only 52 percent met the benchmark. Both rates are up from 25 percent in December 2010, just before the push began.

“We have to make work participation in Ohio and were going to work like heck to do it,” Colbert said. ‘“Hopefully we will be one of the first big states to meet this requirement.”

He rejected critics who say many recipients are being removed from the program unfairly and before they are able to provide for themselves.

“We’re not kicking people off. It’s a personal choice. If you are going to get cash, you are going to have to do a work activity,” Colbert said. “The original law was designed so you were on the program for three years and during that time you would get some job readiness skills or other help, not be at home collecting a check.”

Welfare recipients who do volunteer work or take a job-training course should have a better chance of meeting a potential employer or getting experience to prepare for a job than those who don’t, he said.