With Deadline Approaching, Lawmakers Eye Welfare System Changes
By Cyndi Roy for the State House News Service
      Faced with the possibility of losing $23 million in federal funds this year, lawmakers are proposing changes to welfare laws that would protect disabled recipients while requiring able-bodied recipients to work more.
      The federal welfare waiver Massachusetts is now operating under will expire September 30. As a result, lawmakers must change the state program to comply with tougher federal work participation requirements or risk losing a percentage of the state’s $459 million federal block grant.
      A plan authored by Sen. Cynthia Creem (D-Newton) and Rep. Anthony Cabral (D-New Bedford) would create a separate state-funded assistance program to pay benefits to families who might not be eligible for federal money because they do not meet federal work requirements.
Creem and Cabral told members of a legislative committee Tuesday that their plan will not cost additional money because state is already required to spend $359 million on transitional assistance each year in order to capture the federal funds.
      Under their proposal, some “maintenance of effort” money the state spends each year would be placed in the account to cover those people who cannot meet the requirements. For example, Creem said, state law now exempts from work 5,600 recipients who are disabled heads of household. Because the state has a less restrictive definition of “disabled” than the federal government, many of those recipients would be required to work under the federal rules. Under the Cabral-Creem plan, they would be covered by the state program, and not be counted in the federal government’s mandated work participation rate.
      “Through the creation of a separate state program, we maximize state
resources, assure that Massachusetts will continue to receive the full
federal block grant, and continue to provide assistance to the neediest
segment of our society without incurring federal penalties,” Creem told
members of the Children and Families Committee, which held a public hearing on the proposal. Cabral called the plan an “accounting method” already in use by 29 other states.
       “We take the individual who will not meet the new work requirement and put them on a separate state program,” he told the committee. “It’s an accounting method so we don’t lose money.”
      Recipients who are now working under the state welfare rules will be
required to work more hours under the proposal, Cabral said. “For those
who aren’t exempt, this makes it tougher for them,” he said.
      In order to receive the federal Transitional Assistance to Needy Families block grant, states must show that 50 percent of welfare recipients are working. Massachusetts has not been required to meet that requirement because the state created its own welfare program in 1995, prior to the creation of the federal program. According to the state Department of Transitional Assistance, 20 percent of the nearly 50,000 people on welfare in Massachusetts are working. The rest are exempt because they are disabled or caring for disabled family members, in the third trimester of pregnancy, or they have children under age 2.
      In his January budget proposal released, Gov. Mitt Romney proposed
requiring an estimated 14,000 more recipients to meet expanded work
requirements. Under his plan, recipients classified by the state as
“disabled” but not meeting the federal requirement would be required to
work. To compensate for the increased work rules, Romney’s budget included additional funds for child care, job training and education, and allowed recipients to keep more of their earnings before seeing benefit check reductions. Cabral says those expanded requirements would place the state at risk because those people would not physically be able to go to work.
      In addition, the proposal filed by Creem and Cabral would restore welfare benefits to legal immigrants. Creem predicted the change would cost the state about $1 million a year. The proposal also directs the Department of Transitional Assistance to develop programs and resources to help some of those disabled, exempt residents move back into the workforce.
      “Let’s be honest,” Cabral said. “There are some people who are never going to be able to work. But for those who can, we should give them resources and help they need.”