NYC Worries as Welfare Recipients Face End of Benefits

New York City expects 46,000 recipients will run into the new five-year federal time limit on welfare and 11,000 of these people are failing to cooperate with attempts to help them find jobs, the city’s welfare commissioner said Thursday.

Job growth in the city has cooled but not ground to a halt, helping clip the welfare rolls to 497,113 as of June.

That is a drop of more than 57% from March 1995, when the number of people collecting welfare benefits peaked at more than 1.16 million, according to a statement released by New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Fiscal monitors fret about how much New York City might have to spend to help people once they reach the five-year federal welfare limit--enacted as part of the Clinton administration’s reforms--especially if job growth levels off or turns down.

Currently, the federal government pays half of the welfare program’s price tag, with the other half split between the state and counties.

Under a safety net program that will kick in during December, when the federal five-year time limit will take effect for the first time, the state would take on half of the cost of providing noncash benefits, while counties and cities would have to make up the difference.

Out of the 46,000 people who stand to lose their federal welfare benefits, about 2,500 are elderly or disabled, and thus will be exempt or will move to Supplemental Social Security Income benefits, Jason Turner, the head of the city’s Human Resources Administration, said at a news conference.

About 14,000 people are already working but still do not earn enough to move off welfare. The city’s welfare agency will help them find temporary or full-time jobs, Turner said. About 12,000 people are enrolled in Work Experience Programs, and they will be helped to find jobs in the public or private sector. About 3,500 people still are being evaluated, while 300 people with temporary health problems or mild disabilities will get vocational training.

Turner said the city would rely on outreach programs to try to persuade the “11,000 people sitting at home” and not cooperating with his office to come in and get evaluated for work.