Welfare Rights Page

 
This year, the Welfare Rights Committee fought hard to STOP the five year limit on welfare. Welfare Rights Committee had two bills to stop the time limit for ALL families. One of these bills went all the way through the Senate up to the last committee that would decide the law. The terrible House Republicans wanted to throw every single family off of welfare after five years starting July 1, 2002.
 
 

PEPP wants you to know the facts about welfare, welfare reform, and your rights. The following are some facts from Welfare Rights Committee:

We know MFIP-S Means more Poverty, Hunger, Homelessness!

These are the FACTS:

Fact #1: MFIP-S means we have a five-year limit to get welfare for our lifetime! This includes our children. Are our kids supposed to go to work when they're 5. The only way for our kids to get help after 5 years, is to give them away to someone else! What we need politicians to do , is end POVERTY in five years and create enough decent jobs with decent wages for everyone!

Fact #2: MFIP-S cuts our education. Under STRIDE, we used to get up to four years of education. Now we only get one year, and maybe up to two years. Whether we get a chance to go to college, low-tech, or to ESL to learn English, is up to the DISCRIMINATION of our job counselors.

Fact #3: MFIP-S forces us to look for and take any job, whether it pays enough for our families to survive on or not!  Low wage and dead-end jobs will trap us in poverty forever.

Fact #4: MFIP-S cuts our food stamps. Over half of our families got a big cut in food stamps right away. Food Stamps are Federal money, but Minnesota is cutting what we are eligible for by federal law!

Fact #5: MFIP-S has deadly sanctions and welfare cuts. It we are seen as not "complying", we are sanctioned 10% of our grant and then 30%. Our rent is vendored. If we don't have any grant money left; they sanction our food money! If we don't send in forms on time (or if the worker loses the form), we are CUT off grant completely!

Fact #6: MFIP-S opens the door to discrimination and abuse. It puts way too much power in the hands of our job counselors & workers, who get to decide what we have to do, or can do. Many counselors are lying about what our rights are. If we are immigrants. we are being abused and sent to job search instead of getting the chance to learn English.

Fact #7: MFIP-S does not get us out of poverty. MFIP-S counts our food stamps as income. If we have one child and get a job paying just $6.07 an hour, we're cut completely off the MFIP-S grant and food stamps. This wage will never pay what we need to cover child care, housing, clothing food and medical for our family!

For more on the work of the Welfare Rights Committee, see: Welfare Rights Committee Action Log

The above Facts prepared by: WELFARE RIGHTS COMMITTEE,
Sabathani Community Center 310 E 38th St.,
South Minneapolis, MN