Workfare Plan Attacked for Making People Take Care of Themselves
Upon entering office in 1991, Governor William Weld implemented a workfare
plan that would require most welfare recipients to work in exchange for
benefits. Called Massachusetts Jobs, the program offered AFDC recipients
the option of enrolling in education courses or job training programs.
Individuals deemed job-ready were assigned to work in a non-profit
agency or nursing home while those who refused work lost part of their
welfare benefits. Said state Welfare Commissioner Joseph Gallant, the purpose
of the reform is to “make sure they’re doing something to move off welfare
and not just sitting home and not doing anything.” However, the Massachusetts
Law Reform Institute, the state’s leading LSC-backed welfare litigator,
strongly condemned workfare as nothing more than “an outgrowth of the Reagan-era
ideology that says you should look out for yourself, and take responsibility
for yourself.”
See Teresa Hanafin, “Stubborn Welfare Rolls Spur Aid Alternatives,”
The Boston Globe, June 21 1992, pg. 1
Legal Services Tells Non-Profits Not to Hire Workfare Applicants
Since legal services couldn’t find grounds to sue the Mass Jobs workfare
program, which simply fulfilled the requirements of the federal Family
Support Act of 1988, lawyers resorted to unethical tactics to subvert the
plan. When the Weld administration sent letters to about 2000 non-profit
agencies asking that they accept welfare recipients as volunteers, a coalition
of activist groups, of which the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute was
a major member, sent letters to the agencies telling them not to cooperate
with the state. As a result, 30 agencies refused to hire workfare applicants.
State Human Services Secretary Charles Baker called the actions of legal
services and their allies “outrageous and disgraceful.” Said Baker, “What
this tells me is that there are apparently more people in the human services
community . . . who aren’t that interested in helping welfare recipients
improve their lot in life.”
See Don Aucoin, “Some Groups Skirt Welfare Jobs Program,” The
Boston Globe, January 29 1994, pg. 1
Lobbies Against Ambitious Welfare Reform Plan
In 1995, the Massachusetts legislature overwhelmingly adopted a comprehensive
welfare reform plan that expanded workfare, reduced benefits and placed
a two-year limit on the amount of time individuals can receive assistance.
Legal services lawyers were opposed to all of these provisions. In addition
to filing a lawsuit challenging a 2.75 percent reduction in welfare benefits,
legal services lawyers resorted to more underhanded tactics to gut key
provisions. Democratic State Senator Therese Murray charged that the Massachusetts
Law Reform Institute and other advocates may have lobbied legislators to
undermine the two-year time limit by creating a massive loophole to allow
recipients to receive benefits beyond the limit.
See Connie Paige, “Weld Rips Lawmakers Over Welfare Loophole,”
The Boston Herald, July 14 1995, pg. 004
Opposes Abolition of Welfare for Able-Bodied Adults
In 1991, Governor Weld with the strong support of the Democratic legislature eliminated the General Relief welfare program over the strong opposition of legal services lawyers. General Relief paid monthly benefits of $338 to adults supposedly too disabled to work. However, both the Weld administration and key legislators agreed that General Relief, providing aid to 40,000 people at a cost of $213 million per year, was poorly managed. The Democratic Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee supported the cuts citing the easy ability of unqualified people to get benefits. State officials said that all people had to do to qualify for assistance was simply tell a doctor they were disabled. Despite this bipartisan consensus, legal services responded to the cutbacks with a barrage of lawsuits challenging everything from the tougher criteria that former GR recipients had to meet to get aid under a new program to the constitutionality of the notices terminating benefits.
See Melanie Malherbe, “Legal Services Asks Help Handling
Case Deluge,” Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, April 6 1992, pg. 39
How to Spend a Lot of Money and Stay on Welfare
In 1994, Western Massachusetts Legal Services filed a lawsuit seeking
welfare benefits for Arthur Cooney, a welfare recipient who won $75,000
in the lottery only to lose it all on drugs and gambling. Legal services
lawyers took up Cooney’s cause after state welfare officials refused his
request to get back on welfare following his binge. It seems Cooney was
perfectly suited to be a WMLS client. The legal services outfit had
previously published a pamphlet advising welfare recipients who inherit
or win large amounts of cash not to save the money so they continue to
be eligible for aid. WMLS recommended that recipients who expect to receive
large settlements such as lottery winnings or personal injury awards get
off welfare the month before they get the money so they can spend it without
restrictions. “Since in most cases,” the pamphlet reads, “you want to resume
your eligibility as soon as possible, you will want to spend the
money as quickly as possible.” Legal services even recommends ways to spend
the money such as buying a “special gift” or taking a vacation.
See “Looking Out for their Welfare," Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly,
December 6 1993, pg. 30