The Pennsylvania Welfare Coalition Working together to promote fair and equitable policies for low income children and their families c/o The Pennsylvania Council of Churches 900 South Arlington Avenue, Suite 100 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17109-5089 717.545.4761
TO: Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives
FROM: Rev. Sandra Strauss Chair, Pennsylvania Welfare Coalition Director of Public Advocacy, Pennsylvania Council of Churches
DATE: May 22, 2007
RE: “Welfare” Spending and Policies in Pennsylvania
Over the last week the Pennsylvania House Republican Policy Committee traveled to Williamsport and Lancaster to discuss “Welfare Reform.” On both occasions the hearings received media coverage that contributed to the further mischaracterization of “welfare” spending in the Commonwealth.
The work of the Policy Committee and the media’s reporting of those hearings have failed to inform the public about a fundamental cost driver within the Department of Public Welfare’s budget – investments in the health and long term care needs of children, the disabled and older Pennsylvanians.
The Policy Committee and the subsequent media reports have been nearly silent about the health care challenges that rest within DPW and are the primary drivers of growth in spending on “welfare” programs. The Policy Committee asserts and the media has taken to reporting that “more than 360,000 people were added to the welfare rolls during the Rendell Administration.” There appears to be no sincere effort to acknowledge that what they are referencing is growth in the state’s Medicaid population, which is occurring in part as a result of the graying of the Commonwealth, not growth in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program.
As of last month, 222,310 Pennsylvanians in 87,546 families were receiving TANF cash assistance – what is traditionally perceived as “welfare.” Nearly three quarters of those individuals are children. In fact, the current number of Pennsylvanians receiving a TANF grant has dropped by more than fifty percent in ten years and at its current level it is below the number of citizens receiving a cash grant at the conclusion of the Ridge/Schweiker Administrations. Since December 2006, the Commonwealth has experienced a 5.5 percent overall decrease in the number of persons receiving TANF cash assistance.
As you may recall, the Coalition issued the attached papers in late February emphasizing that “We believe the Commonwealth is best served by an immediate and on-going effort by policy makers, faith and civic leaders, and advocates to work together to portray accurately the valuable services and persons benefiting from welfare spending in the Commonwealth.” On the verge of pivotal state budget negotiations, we felt it imperative to resubmit the documents for your review.
We remain invested in doing our part to accurately address the hurdles and successes within the DPW, especially those that specifically relate to what is commonly known as “welfare” – a TANF cash grant. There is no reasonable justification why the Policy Committee has decided to inaccurately characterize where there has and where there has not been growth in the programs under DPW’s jurisdiction.
Clearly it will be harder for members of the General Assembly to take a knife to the DPW budget with any zeal if the “welfare” they would be cutting is not cash benefits for a politically disenfranchised group that is often wrongly portrayed as unwilling to work, but rather our aging parents and grandparents, the disabled and sick children in working families all who share a common reality – their life circumstances dictate they need publicly funded access to health insurance.
We implore you to do your part, as we will ours, to craft sound policy choices driven by both accurate data and a shared commitment to the health and well-being of the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable citizens.