Lawmakers Face Off on Benefits for State’s Poor

For the first time in nearly a decade, the state Legislature is poised to approve an increase in benefits to millions of impoverished Californians, but the effort has ignited a bitter partisan dispute and deeply divided advocates for the poor.

The Republicans want to provide a cost-of-living hike to 1 million people who receive aid for the blind, aged and disabled. The Democrats additionally want an increase in benefits to the state’s 2.1 million welfare recipients, including 1.5 million children.

The conflict, which has been playing out for weeks in hearing rooms, comes just one year after adoption of hotly contested welfare reforms that were designed to set the long-range course for how the state treats its most needy citizens. At its heart is the philosophical issue of whether one category of poor people deserves more state help than another.

The issue arose because the state’s robust economy has created $4.4 billion in surplus revenues and generated welfare savings as former recipients moved into the work force. As the 1998-99 budget is being hammered out, both parties have supported proposals that would increase Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for the aged, blind and disabled. But the Democrats want a larger SSI benefits increase than the Republicans--and they also want a cost-of-living increase extended to welfare families.

GOP leaders say they will fight all the way to the governor’s office to block the Democratic proposals, which are estimated to cost the state at least $400 million per year.

“I cannot envision Republicans voting for a budget that would include a pay raise for able-bodied welfare recipients,” said Assemblyman Roy Ashburn, a Bakersfield Republican who has taken a leading role on welfare issues.

But Assembly Human Services Committee Chairwoman Dion Aroner (D-Berkeley) is just as adamant. She contends that poor children, who comprise the majority of welfare recipients, are as dependent on the state’s assistance as the disabled are.

The wrangling has forced advocates for the poor to choose sides, setting off angry exchanges in legislative hearing rooms.

“We are not the ones who have women out there having babies, [it] is not our responsibility,” one representative of the disabled told legislators as he urged a committee to approve the Republican position.

Supporters of women and children on welfare shouted from the audience: “Don’t betray the children, don’t betray the children.” Then one advocate for the disabled rose in defense of the welfare recipients, saying, “It’s vitally important that we treat all individuals equally in this state.”

The tensions are an indication of how high the stakes are for poor people, who have seen steady declines in the real value of their government aid payments since 1990.

Year after year, as a severe recession prompted huge losses in tax revenues, the governor and the Legislature suspended cost-of-living increases and cut benefits for the poor.

In an eight-year period, the value of welfare benefits dropped 34% while that for SSI recipients fell 17%, according to the Western Center on Law and Poverty.

Aid to the blind, aged and disabled is a federal program, but its benefits are augmented by the state. All participants in the program have to show that they are poor, meaning they have few assets and any income is less than the monthly benefits paid by the program.

A person must submit proof from a doctor that he or she has a physical or mental impairment that is expected to last at least 12 months. The impairment has to prevent them from “substantial, gainful activity,” generally defined as work for wages that exceeds $500 a month.

The blind must also have a doctor’s proof that they meet the legal definition of blindness, which is vision of 20/200 or less with a corrective lens in the best eye. The aged, who make up only a small portion of the program, must be 65 or older.

The budget proposals by the Democratic majority would restore a 4.9% cut in welfare benefits and add a 2.8% cost-of-living increase. The two hikes, to become effective in November, typically would boost the maximum cash grant for a mother with two children in Los Angeles from $565 to $611 a month, putting an extra $46 in their pockets.

For aged, blind and disabled individuals, a 5.7% cost-of-living increase would lift the average monthly benefit from $650 to $687, providing $37 extra. It would go into effect in January.

“Sometimes, it’s the difference between food on the table,” Arlon Wilson, an SSI recipient in Chico, said of the increase. “We’re at the very bottom rung of the economic ladder, a lot of us live below the poverty line, and a lot of us are in very desperate situations.”

Wilson, who has been using a wheelchair since a fall at age 19 broke his back, said even a small increase can help pay rent or a utility bill.

“People already can’t live off what they’re receiving,” said Virginia Hall, a mother of three and former welfare recipient who worked her way off the rolls. “That increase would help people get off welfare because it could give them money for things like transportation. People just can’t afford transportation to go to work.”

But how much of an increase recipients get will depend on the willingness of Democrats and Republicans to compromise.

In his latest budget proposal, Gov. Pete Wilson has recommended a $10-a-month raise in SSI benefits, a $60-million proposal other Republicans are backing. But he opposes any increase in welfare benefits.

“I think it’s going in exactly the wrong direction,” he said. “[Democrats] don’t seem to understand that what we’re trying to do is make work more attractive than welfare. By increasing the welfare stipend, we are going in exactly the wrong direction.”

*

A spokesman declined to say whether the governor would veto the Democratic proposals if they are passed by the Assembly and Senate.

Ashburn said Republicans believe that only the blind, aged and disabled deserve a hike in benefits because they are the least likely to be able to work and improve their economic status. But he said welfare recipients benefit from the millions of dollars that are being poured into welfare-to-work programs throughout the state.

At one time, cost-of-living increases were automatically provided. “For years and years, [the] Democrats allowed the able-bodied to hide behind these [disabled] people so that cost-of-living increases were given to both at the same time,” Assemblyman Tom Woods (R-Shasta) said at a hearing. “We’re not going to let them do that anymore.”

Aroner said that when lawmakers started cutting benefits in 1991, they promised to reinstate them as soon as the economy improved.

“I think we should keep our deal,” she said. “This Legislature and this governor made a commitment . . . to all Californians that, once we came out of the recession, everybody would be made whole again.”

Advocates for the poor said the divisions between Republicans and Democrats left them with difficult choices. Frances Gracechild, who represents the disabled, backed Ashburn’s measure believing that, although welfare recipients also deserve an increase, the two categories of poor should not be bound together.

“Welfare and [SSI] are separate programs with different eligibility [requirements] and different funding,” she said. “Why hold one hostage to the other?”

Christina DiFrancesco, of Housing California Fair Share Network, said her nonprofit organization serves both groups but backs the Democratic position, believing that the poverty issue crosses all groups.

“We’re all poor,” she said. “If you want to quibble about dollar differences, you can do that. But if you look at life experiences [of the poor], they are very, very similar.”