Speak out against Cuomo’s Kid Sanction Bill

One of the provisions in the Governor’s proposal concerns something called “full family sanctions.” When a someone in a family receiving welfare is thought to have broken a rule, they receive sanctions – i.e., a reduction in their welfare grant. Currently, household containing a sanctioned individual has their welfare grant reduced only by the amount that one person in that household would receive. For example, a family of three people with a sanctioned member receives a welfare grant equal in amount to that of a family of two.

Under current law, the children in sanctioned families continue to have their basic needs met. Governor Cuomo’s budget proposal changes this law, eliminating the entire family’s welfare grant.

The upshot of this change is that tens of thousands of children in sanctioned families will no longer continue to have their basic needs met. Not only will they lose their housing, child care and access to food stamps, but research suggests that they will also be at greater risk of educational failure, health problems, and foster care involvement.

You can speak out against this provision!

Reach out to your NYS Assembly representative and tell them to move against these child sanctions! Pay particular attention to the members of the Social Services Committee.

Check back early next week for model language and talking points that you can use in a letter, email or phone call!

In the mean time, for more information about this, check out the Citizen’s Committee for Children’s Statement about the Governor’s Proposal:

“To help close a $10 billion budget deficit, Governor Cuomo’s budget shifts traditional state supports to struggling counties and reduces spending on a wide-array of services and programs for children and youth that have already been proven effective at producing positive outcomes and preventing more costly interventions”

Homeless population in great need, but funds for services being cut

According to the Queens Courier, the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) announced Code Blue procedures would take effect at 8 p.m. Dec. 7, and continue until 8 a.m. the next morning on Dec. 8. This means that because the weather prediction was of a temperature or wind chill below 20 degrees, the DHS doubled both its outreach vans and personnel that night to protect unsheltered people from death. These outreach teams assess the health of homeless individuals and evaluate their symptoms of cold weather distress, such as hypothermia and frostbite, providing help when needed.

Similarly, the Bronx Times reported on Nov. 22 that the Coalition for the Homeless’ food vans have been feeding more than 900 homeless New Yorkers each night in the Bronx and Manhattan. Over the last year, the demand for NYC’s food pantries and kitchens has increased by nearly 7%.  Clearly, New York families are in desperate need of assistance, and this need is only deepening as winter sets in.

These examples highlight substantial programs that New York’s homeless population is in dire need of. But with budget cuts reducing funds for homeless services, as mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, it is likely that these programs will face huge funding losses in the upcoming months.

The Gotham Gazette reported that the budget cuts are part of an attempt to close a $3.3 billion budget hole next fiscal year. The Bloomberg administration proposed nearly $1.6 billion in new cuts last month, with nearly $19 million of which being taken from the Department of Homeless Services over the next 18 months. With these cuts, the department will have less ability to provide the kind of outreach that was used the other night to ensure that homeless individuals did not die in the cold. Between 2005 and 2010, the shelter population increased by nearly 9%. Currently, 18.7% of NYC residents live under the federal measure of poverty. It is not the time to greatly reduce the budget for services that New York’s most suffering individuals are in critical need of.

For more on information on the budget cuts, click here.

Jobless benefits cut, focus on youth could reduce future unemployment

Nearly 100,000 New Yorkers, along with about two million other Americans, will no longer be receiving unemployment benefits due to Congress’s refusal to extend them. With the national unemployment rate currently at 9.6 percent, and New York City’s jobless rate at 9.2%, this will leave even more people struggling in the fight against poverty.

Not only will this affect jobless adults, but their families and children who rely on them. In Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, Georgetown professor Harry J. Holzer writes:

“Children growing up in poor households or with unemployed parents under great stress are at risk of worse performance in school and lower educational attainment; youth who are not able to find work at a critical early point in their careers will likely suffer elevated joblessness and lower earnings over time.”

Thus, this refusal to extend jobless benefits can have long-term affects on many children, hindering their potential for future success by leaving them in poverty. This perpetuates the cycle that many of these youth are already stuck in: they are unable to overcome the poverty they were born into without access to benefits and assistance needed for change.

Holzer states that in this weak economic environment, the government should undertake necessary expenditures, at least in the short-run, to provide supportive services for families in poverty and help create more jobs in the private and public sectors. In the long run, the government needs to invest in cost-effective strategies that improve education and earnings of low-income children and adults, in order to provide for a more successful future.

If education and jobs for low-income youth are enhanced, poor children are more likely to be successful in the future and overcome the poverty that many of them are currently stuck in. Although the adults who soon will be struggling without unemployment benefits are in need as well, focusing on education and career training programs for youth could prevent such high employment rates from developing in the future. When we no longer have a situation in which 9.2% of people are without work, jobless benefits will no longer be needed. This would create a win-win situation in which people are employed and the government’s debt is not increased.

For more information on the unemployment benefits cuts, click here.

Additional articles and reports

Here are some more interesting recent articles and reports to check out:

State/Local:
• “Community Care Center Opens in Bronx,” by Peter Milosheff, Bronx Times, Nov. 10 – Amerigroup Community care opened its first facility in the Bronx, offering low-income families state-sponsored free and low-cost health insurance programs for children.

• “Community Colleges Grad Rates Are Low,” by La Shawn Pagan, Queens Courier, Nov. 10 – 71.5% of full-time CUNY community college students fail to graduate after 6 years, programs such as childcare assistance offered to help students graduate faster.

• “Community Demands Living Wages,” by Luisa Garcia, Queens Courier, Nov. 10 – Labor and community groups protested for living wages for retail workers, part of growing campaign to require city businesses that receive public subsidies to pay a living wage with benefits.

• “Tell Me What I Want to Hear: Bloomberg’s Living Wage Study,” by John Petro, Huffington Post, Nov. 9 – Mayor opposes bill that would guarantee workers at city-led development projects a living wage, believing that it will raise unemployment.

National:
• “Recession Shadows America’s Middle Class,” by Marc Pitzke, Spiegel Online, Nov. 10 – Many Americans moving from middle-class to near-poverty during recession, and with Republican Party recently reclaiming the House of Representatives, less will be done to help.

• “In U.S., 14% Rely on Food Stamps,” by Sara Murray, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 4 – Number of Americans relying on government assistance to buy food has increased, particularly amongst families, women, and young children.

• “Scary New Wage Data,” by David Cay Johnston, Tax.com: The Tax Daily for the Citizen Taxpayer, Oct. 25 – Income/wage data reveals the depth of job loss in 2009, as well as income inequality. Nationally, total wages, median wages, and average wages all declined, but at the very top, salaries increased more than fivefold.