Inquirer Editorial: Rule won't encourage work

The Corbett administration seems to have figured out how to deprive Pennsylvania's neediest families of welfare benefits by throwing an utterly ridiculous and duplicative barrier in their paths.

A new rule implemented by the state's Department of Public Welfare provides a case study in how to undermine a program that you apparently don't think should exist. The rule says that before anyone can apply for welfare benefits, he must fill out a form showing he has been turned down for three jobs. The rule suggests people applying for welfare may be too lazy to look for work. It also ignores that some applicants may be working, but not making enough to support their families.

Why the administration even felt the rule was necessary is puzzling since welfare has had a work requirement since President Bill Clinton and Congress ended "welfare as we know it" in 1996. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) rules require a person receiving benefits to have a job, be in a job-training program, or search for a job under the guidance of caseworkers.

So why is the state asking applicants to fill out extra paperwork, increasing the burden of an understaffed, slow-paced bureaucracy? Accusations that the true aim is to trim welfare rolls by confusing applicants isn't farfetched. It seems to be happening.

Since the job-search rule was put into effect last year, almost 80 percent of the people who applied for welfare have been turned down. That is a dramatic leap from the normal turndown rate, which had ranged from 50 percent to 60 percent. Many applicants don't even know about the prequalifying work-search rule, so they get rejected immediately.

It's not wrong to want aid recipients to look for work, but the Corbett approach is counterproductive. Long-standing TANF procedures include an initial assessment to devise a plan to help an applicant find a job or be trained for one. It also includes transportation and child-care assistance for the job seeker. Without those components to help a person become employed, Corbett's new rule certainly seems to be designed to discourage welfare applications.

The government is supposed to help the poor get on their feet, not make people feel like losers by forcing them to find their way through an application maze in which the ultimate goal seems to be failure.

Perhaps the only way to see the prequalifying work rule as a good idea is if you have bought into the lie that most welfare recipients are lazy scammers exploiting the program. That same misguided thinking has House Republicans in Congress voting to cut $4 billion a year from food stamps. It also may explain why Corbett has put an equally dubious work rule in his proposed health-care program.

But he has to know that welfare pays only $314 a month to a mother and child. No one is living the good life on such a tiny check. Corbett may not like welfare, or that too many families need it, but his job is to smartly administer the program so people don't become homeless while looking for work.

The prequalifying work rule does little but add to a desperate family's suffering. It is an unnecessary rule that Corbett should strip from the books and do more to actually help aid applicants find work.