State Struggling With Welfare-To-Work Efforts

HARTFORD (AP) — Connecticut risks losing millions of dollars in federal aid unless it does more to help welfare recipients find and keep jobs, according to a new legislative report.

The legislature’s Program Review and Investigations Committee, which reviewed the state’s Jobs First welfare initiative, also concluded that a state earned-income tax credit should be considered.

The state could lose $13 million in 2007 and additional funds in coming years unless it boosts the number of welfare clients in work-related activities, as required by Congress in its reauthorization of federal funds earlier this year.

That is true even though Connecticut has seen a dramatic drop in the number of welfare clients over the past decade.

The average monthly caseload, about 59,000 ten years ago, was down to about 20,000 this past June.

Of those recipients, 7,555 were expected to find jobs within the 21-month benefit limit and 12,305 were exempt, mostly because the benefits were going only to children.

Many Connecticut welfare recipients struggle with transportation, child care costs, and other barriers as they seek work, the report says.

The report found that many welfare families could not earn enough to stay off government assistance permanently, and that one of every three such Connecticut families returned to the welfare rolls within three months of leaving the program.

Connecticut overhauled its welfare program in the 1990s, and has not increased its monthly payments to families since 1995.

The legislative committee’s recommendations include making welfare clients more aware of the federal earned-income tax credit, in which working poor families can qualify for a refund even if they earned too little to owe any taxes.

Advocates say it is an effective tool to help poor families save enough to stay off of welfare once they leave.

More than 21 million families receive about $39 billion annually through the federal program, and 19 states and the District of Columbia also provide state earned-income tax credits.

The General Assembly’s finance committee has considered a state credit in the past, but it has not been implemented.