Number of Welfare Recipients in County Drops

After a steep six-year climb, the number of Ventura County residents receiving welfare has begun to drop as the county’s economic rebound continues to outstrip the recovery of the rest of Southern California.

New figures show that after more than doubling since 1989, total welfare recipients peaked in March and dropped about 1,700 to 81,385 by the end of July. At the same time, county job levels have reached all-time highs.

Welfare recipients now represent about 11.3% of the county’s population, contrasted with about 8% in 1989 before the four-year recession.

“I’m cautiously hopeful that this is the beginning of a trend,” said Helen Reburn, deputy director of the county Public Social Services Agency.

“I think we’re seeing the beginning of a turnaround in the economy,” Reburn said. Strong gains in a welfare jobs program also have moved several hundred people off public aid, she said.

The Ventura County economy, in fact, has grown for 18 months, pushing job levels to historic highs. In June, there were 255,900 jobs in the county, about 14,000 more than at the depths of the recession. And 3,200 more county residents were employed in June than a year earlier.

That rebound, economists say, has finally begun to reach society’s lower rungs--the marginally skilled workers who often find themselves on welfare rolls.

“When you have a recovery, the best of the labor force gets picked up first,” said Mark Schniepp, an economic forecaster at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “As your recovery continues, you pick up more employees as you need them in the more unskilled ranks.”

The recovery has progressed in Ventura County at a faster pace than elsewhere in the region, he said.

“No other county in Southern California has gotten back to their pre-recession job levels,” he said. “Consumer spending is way up and home-buying is starting to come back.”

After March, the effects of that uptick could be seen on local welfare rolls as well.

Aid to Families with Dependent Children fell in July for the fourth straight month and has now dropped 1,484 recipients, to 29,808.

Likewise, after doubling in six years, total food stamp recipients fell 2,153 as summer began and now stand at 40,709.

The reductions represent the first time both AFDC and food stamps--the principal aid programs for the poor--have dropped simultaneously since 1989, Reburn said.

For all types of public aid except Medi-Cal, spending dropped from $9.1 million in March to $8.6 million in July.

Even Medi-Cal cases--where eligibility rules allow for higher incomes--dipped in July.

Part of the improvement stems from the state granting more money to train welfare recipients and place them in jobs, Reburn said. Counselors now work with about 25% of parents on AFDC, contrasted with 10% a year ago. And in May, 175 recipients got jobs, double those placed during the same month last year.

“We continue to serve a greater number and to have a more aggressive focus on getting them immediately into jobs,” she said.

But Reburn said she believes future gains might be harder to come by. She expects to see the usual August increase in recipients as some seasonal farm jobs end. Also, she said easy-to-place workers may have already gotten off welfare.

“We’ve had a greater number of highly skilled middle-class people who had never been on welfare before,” she said. “And those were the first ones to find jobs and get off aid.”

Indeed, some cyclical professions where many workers have sought relief--including agriculture and construction--have experienced no job increases at all during the last year.

Despite an improving economy, welfare rolls also have remained relatively high contrasted with the late 1980s, because of new rules that allow recipients to still get public aid even after they return to work if their wages are low.

“Until two years ago, once an unemployed parent got any kind of a job where he worked more than 100 hours a month, the family was no longer eligible for any financial assistance,” Reburn said. “Now a family may still be eligible for a small grant [while working], and would still show up as recipients on our rolls.”

Indeed, the amount of aid given to many recipients is down: Welfare expenditures have fallen 5.5% since March, much more quickly than the 2% reduction in welfare recipients.

Single mothers Deborah Senkir of Ventura and Carol Bunch of Simi Valley are two recipients who have moved away from public aid and into the work force.

Senkir, 38, works full time, renting and cleaning metal bins for Port-a-Stor in Ventura.

She makes $9 an hour, which means it takes two weekly paychecks to cover the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Jenna Rose.

“I still don’t have enough money,” Senkir said. “But it’s better, a lot better. I’d much rather be working.”

Bunch, 40, makes more than $9 an hour as a medical document transcriber working for a temporary employee service in Thousand Oaks.

“You can’t go off until you can support yourself,” she said. “I got offered other jobs, but I couldn’t live on that.” Now she supports two sons, makes house and car payments and says she is still trying to pay off debts her husband left behind. And since June, when a year of public child-care assistance ended, she has struggled to find a place to leave her boys while she works.

“We’re living on a string right now,” she said. “If anything [costly] happened, that would be it. We’d be back on welfare.”

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Number of Welfare Cases

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Food General AFDC *stamps relief Medi-Cal July, 1989 18,719 20,765 162 12,878 July, 1990 20,023 22,814 306 17,304 July, 1991 22,531 27,601 409 22,408 July, 1992 24,273 33,645 498 36,660 July, 1993 27,511 38,653 370 40,988 July, 1994 30,281 40,749 254 41,496 July, 1995 29,808 40,709 196 **33,935

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* Some recipients received more than one type of aid and were double-counted.

** Medi-Cal totals dropped sharply in 1995 because previous counts included all eligible people, not just those who received aid.

Source: Ventura County Public Social Services Agency

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Welfare Recipients by City

July, 1995

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Residents Total % % Recipients of county of county per receiving population recipients population 1,000 aid population 1,000 Camarillo 3,173 58,500 3.9% 8.1% 54.2 Fillmore 2,998 12,850 3.7% 1.8% 233.3 Moorpark 2,189 27,550 2.7% 3.8% 79.5 Ojai 1,565 8,150 1.9% 1.1% 192.0 Oxnard 37,026 154,600 45.5% 21.5% 239.5 Port Hueneme 3,448 21,750 4.2% 3.0% 158.5 Santa Paula 6,611 27,100 8.1% 3.8% 243.9 Simi Valley 6,134 103,700 7.5% 14.4% 59.2 Thousand Oaks 2,960 112,600 3.6% 15.6% 26.3 Ventura 11,766 100,700 14.5% 14.0% 116.8 Unincorporated 3,515 93,100 4.3% 12.9% 37.8 Countywide 81,385 720,500 100.0% 100.0% 113.0

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Source: Ventura County Public Social Services Agency, California Department of Finance