ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 14, 1997 TAG: 9702140063
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Cox News Service
Welfare rolls nationwide have dropped by about 400,000 families in the past year, a trend that could mean more money for those most needing help finding a job, according to a congressional report released Thursday.
Between September 1995 and September 1996, welfare rolls dropped 8.5 percent, from 4.6 million to 4.2i million families. By 1998, the number is expected to be 3.7 million.
The primary reasons for the decline are a robust economy, waivers that have allowed states to experiment with welfare program changes, and discussion of welfare changes by President Clinton and Congress, said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., R-Fla., who heads the subcommittee that drafted the welfare law.
The smaller number of people on welfare means states will have more money to spend per family, because the new welfare law earmarks a block amount to each state regardless of the size of its case load.
``Because of the savings ... [states] will have much more money to spend in job training to get the hard-core unemployed into the job market,'' Shaw said.
The report, prepared by Shaw's Ways and Means subcommittee, indicated that between 1994 and 1998, the average federal welfare benefit will increase by 34 percent, or more than $2,000 per family. States are required to provide about 80 percent as much assistance as the federal government.
Clifford Johnson, a senior fellow for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the increased amount available per beneficiary for job training should help, but ``the enormous cuts affecting legal immigrants and food stamps are going to pose huge problems ... for desperately poor individuals.''
The Clinton administration hopes to restore about $21billion in welfare, Medicare and food stamp benefits to legal immigrants, but subcommittee members at a hearing Thursday offered little hope for that proposal.
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, told panel members that legal immigrants should be the responsibility of their citizen sponsors. He claimed that the average income of immigrant families with at least one member receiving Supplemental Security Income for the poor elderly and disabled was $38,000.
Smith said the number of noncitizens receiving cash SSI payments had increased 580 percent between 1982 and 1994.
But Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., questioned Smith's statistics. He said the average income for noncitizen families is about $22,000. A Social Security Administration official said the increase in noncitizen participation in the SSI program was from 3.3 percent to 12.1 percent of the total number of beneficiaries.
Shaw noted that 51 percent of SSI spending on elderly beneficiaries is for noncitizens.
``It shows us how the immigrants really are coming here and using the United States as a retirement home,'' Shaw said.
The Social Security Administration estimates that about 500,000 legal immigrants will lose SSI assistance this year as a result of the new welfare law.
The Clinton administration would like to restore $9.9billion in SSI benefits for legal immigrants who have become disabled since arriving in the United States. Additional Medicaid and food stamp benefits are expected to increase spending for noncitizens to about $21billion.
Surprisingly, the most stinging rebuke to Clinton's proposal came from Democrats.
Rep. Robert Matsui, D-Calif., said the administration should not give states and legal immigrants the expectation that Congress will approve the request.
``It's going to be really hard to get people to pay for noncitizens' benefits when they are going to be taking away from citizens' programs,'' Matsui said.
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