State Exempts 25 Counties From Federal Welfare Rules

By VIRGINIA ELLIS

Feb. 20, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO —

The Wilson administration has agreed to exempt 25 California counties with high unemployment from federal welfare reform provisions that would have required them to cut nonworking single adults from food stamp rolls.

Three additional counties--Plumas, Del Norte and San Benito--were offered the exemption but rejected it, saying they expected their unemployment rates to drop dramatically in the next few weeks as seasonal agricultural jobs open up.

The exemption, which affects mostly rural counties in California’s farm belt, is expected to protect about 38,000 poor adults from losing federal food assistance.

It was granted under a provision in the new welfare law that allows states to exempt from mandatory food stamp cuts any area where unemployment exceeds 10%. Unemployment in the affected counties ranges as high as 30%.

Sean Walsh, a spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson, said the Republican chief executive personally approved the exemptions even though he believes strongly that able-bodied adults, particularly men without children, should be required to work and that government policies should reflect that requirement.

“But he is also realistic,” Walsh said. “He knows that if you are in an area that has 33% unemployment, it may be difficult to actually locate jobs, any jobs, particularly if there is seasonal work involved.”

In counties with high unemployment, he said, Wilson believes that the government should continue to provide a safety net that ensures that the poor will have food.

But advocates for the poor said Wilson’s approach to the exemptions was very conservative. They said guidelines issued by the federal government gave the state authority to consider factors other than the unemployment rate in determining which counties were eligible for exemptions.

Laurie True of California Food Policy Advocates said that if Wilson had used some of these other criteria, such as the availability of jobs in particular areas, most counties in the state could have been exempt.

“We think basically this is very shortsighted,” she said. “What it’s going to do is basically leave a lot of the population susceptible to cutoffs” of food stamps.

Financed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture but administered by state and local governments, the food stamp program provides 3.2 million needy Californians with coupons they can exchange for food. The average payment is $67 a month.

Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura are among the counties that are not eligible for the exemption. They are required to drop from the food stamp rolls all able-bodied adults who are 18 to 50 years of age and who don’t have minor children if they fail to find work within three months. Social services officials said that about 208,800 of these adults receive food stamps in California.

For most, the three-month time clock began ticking in November and expires at the end of this month.

Although unemployment is high in many pockets of Los Angeles, particularly South-Central and East Los Angeles, the county’s overall jobless rate is below 10%.

Even so, county officials have come up with a strategy to avoid the cutoffs by providing community service jobs for any adults who have not found work within the time limit.

The Wilson administration’s actions provide relief for counties such as Fresno and Imperial, which are doubly impacted by the new welfare law’s rigid work requirements. Both counties have a large number of welfare and food stamp recipients as well as extremely high unemployment.

“Our unemployment fluctuates between 26% and 33%. People in other counties can’t even comprehend that,” said James Semmes, Social Services Department director for Imperial County. “We knew we would have a very difficult time having our clientele meet that [work] requirement. We asked for the exemption right away.”

Fresno County Welfare Director Ernest Velasquez said his county has faced chronic unemployment of 10% to 11% for as long as he can remember.

“Fresno County is just totally different from the rest of the state,” he said. “We are very pleased we were able to get this waiver because for so many of our people, even if they try, the jobs aren’t there. They rely on the stamps just to put food on the table.”

In Plumas and San Benito, two small counties with a large seasonal work force, officials said they declined the exemption because local business people advised them that jobs will soon be plentiful.

“The rains have stopped. The ground is dry, and you don’t see a single tractor parked anywhere. They’re all working, planting seed,” said San Benito County Supervisor Richard Scagliotti. “We’re heading into the period where people are going back to work.”

Scagliotti said his board voted 3 to 2 to reject the exemption despite a recommendation from county welfare officials that it be accepted. He said the supervisors wanted to adopt a wait-and-see attitude to find out how many people would actually have to be cut from the rolls. He said that if it turns out to be a large number, the county can always reconsider and accept the exemption.

Social Services Director Paul Carter of Plumas County said the timber and tourist industry, the mainstays of his county’s economy, expect to have plenty of job openings in the next few weeks that will greatly reduce the unemployment rate.

“We just feel like we would be doing the community a great deal of disservice if we didn’t try to find these people jobs,” he said.

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Exemptions from Food Stamp Cuts

A new federal law allows states to exempt areas of high unemployment from welfare reform requirements that would trim non-working adults from the food stamp program. Twenty-five counties with more than 10% unemployment have been granted exemptions by the Wilson administration. Three other counties declined to accept the exemptions. Below are the affected counties and their unemployment rates:

Counties affected

Calaveras: 10.3%

Colusa: 19.9%

Del Norte*: 11.6%

Fresno: 13.9%

Glenn: 15.2%

Imperial: 29.5%

Kern: 13.4%

Kings: 14.7%

Lake: 11.6%

Lassen: 11.1%

Madera: 14.9%