PA. to stop food stamps to anyone with more than $2,000 in assets (except house and some cars) [View all]

[JPZenger]

Last edited Fri Jan 13, 2012, 11:56 AM - Edit history (1)

http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=358245

"Pennsylvanians seeking food stamps will soon have to pass an asset test that state officials say is a way to weed out fraud but welfare advocates claim does more harm than good. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the asset test slated to take effect May 1 would bar anyone under 60 from receiving food stamps if they have more than $2,000 in savings or similar assets. The limit would be $3,250 for anyone over 60.

Houses and retirement benefits would be exempt but second cars with a value over $4,650 would count. The Department of Public Welfare tells the Inquirer the new policy will prevent someone from taking benefits if they have their own resources.

Critics say the new test hurts seniors and the newly unemployed while making it harder for the working poor to save enough to escape poverty."

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Remember folks that many people on food stamps do work - they just don't earn enough to support their families. In many parts of the state, two people in a household cannot work and cannot find a job unless they each have a reliable car. One of the main reasons for unemployment is when a person's car dies and they can't afford to replace it. The idea is particularly absurd because the Federal Government pays about $10 in food benefits for every dollar funded by the state. An asset test makes sense, particularly for someone with large liquid assets - but not for such a low amount.

Now, the Corbettites are proposing to make people use all of the emergency funds and sell their second car before they can get food assistance.

The entire Pa. share of the food stamp program could be funded with a reasonable gas extraction tax - which the legislature has delayed for THREE YEARS.
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Phil Inquirer article on this topic:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120110_Pennsylvania_to_impose_asset_test_for_food_stamps.html?cmpid=124488489

"Critics of the DPW plan say it would particularly punish elderly people saving for their burials, poor people trying to save enough money to get out of poverty, and working- and middle-class people who lost their jobs in the recession and may now have to liquidate assets to feed their families.

Pennsylvania receives about $2.5 billion in federal SNAP funds annually and pays about $160 million annually in state money to maintain the program. In Pennsylvania, people can access SNAP if they make 160 percent of the federal poverty level or less. For a family of four, the poverty level is $22,350. Currently 35 states, including New Jersey, have gotten rid of asset tests, many of them during the recession, when so many working- and middle-class people have been falling into poverty, antipoverty experts say.

"I'm very pessimistic about our ability to meet people's needs," Clark said. "This will be a mind-boggling, self-inflicted wound. It makes no compassionate, political, or economic sense." For many elderly especially, $3,250 in the bank serves as "the poor man's medical insurance," Clark said.

That sounds about right, said Doris Gray, 72, a divorced, college-educated former graphic artist from Mount Airy with a heart condition who gets $200 a month in food stamps. Rent, insurance, and medical costs are more than her $1,079 monthly Social Security check. She relies on $14,000 in savings to survive, but Gray estimates it will be depleted in two years. But before that - as of May 1, if the DPW plan holds - her food stamps will be gone. "It means I'll have to give up paying for my health insurance," she said. "I can't afford food and insurance. "I feel panic, dismay, and bewilderment. The state doesn't understand that there are so many of us people living on the edge."

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Essay: A Christian Response to Corbett's Food Stamp Cuts

http://itsonlyanorthernblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/christian-response-to-gov-corbetts-plan.html
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People will have to hit rock bottom before they can eat.