Healey Criticizes Welfare Plan

Healey Criticizes Legislature’s New Welfare Plan
              Kerri Healey stated yesterday that the Democratic legislature is trying to reverse reforms in welfare, and make it more difficult for families to get off of welfare.
              She says the new plan does not meet federal standards signed by President Clinton in 1996 and would create a separate state-funded program for welfare recipients without incentives to help lift them out of poverty and cost the state millions of dollars.
               “Taxpayers will shoulder the burden of supporting those individuals on welfare and their families indefinitely if we don’t give them the opportunity to find a job and become self-sufficient. The legislature wants to rubberstamp welfare in Massachusetts by allowing people stuck in poverty to continue to collect a welfare check.”
              Healey said Massachusetts was a pioneer when Governor Weld signed welfare reform into law in 1995. Since then, the state has reduced the number of welfare recipients by 50 percent.