Welfare Reform Action Alert - Oppose 100% MFIP Sanctions

Affirmative Options Coalition 2-8-2000

This is a very comprehensive Action Alert, including background information on the issue of welfare reform, specifically the MN Family Investment Program (MFIP) and the potential harm the newly proposed MFIP sanctions could have on MN's vulnerable children. 

Minnesota NOW is a member of the Affirmative Options Coalition which is a statewide coalition of organizations and individuals advocating and organizing a comprehensive approach to welfare reform and economic security. If you have been a MN NOW member for awhile, you know that this has been one of our core issues that we continue to work hard on.

Our Legislative Coordinator, Rachel Callanan, also our Affirmative Options Coalition liaison, asks you to take the time to read this alert and make the appropriate telephone calls to Senate and House Committee members (listed at the end of the alert).

Oppose Legislative Proposals for 100% Sanctions in MFIP

In both the Minnesota Senate and House, bills are being introduced that would cut families completely off of the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) if they are not complying with the program's requirements. If this legislation is passed it will put some of the poorest and most vulnerable children in Minnesota in grave danger of homelessness and hunger. It is imperative that we prevent welfare reform in Minnesota from taking this punitive and misguided course. A 100% sanction would fundamentally undermine perhaps the most important goal of MFIP -- reducing child poverty -- by putting a gaping hole in the state's safety net for poor children.

Background:
Under current state law, participants who are not complying with the work requirements of MFIP are penalized. The first infraction guarantees a sanction that reduces the family grant by 10%. If a participant doesn't comply after this 10% cut, the grant is reduced by 30%, after housing costs have been paid. A family remains at this 30% level until they "cure" the reason for sanction.

The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) recently released a report on families in danger of hitting the 60-month time limit on federal welfare assistance. The report recommends granting extensions for families beyond 60 months if they're making a good faith effort but not yet able to achieve self-sufficiency. However, DHS also recommends instituting 100% sanctions. The primary reason given by DHS in promoting this policy change is an assumption that the threat and promise of the 100% sanction will motivate people to cooperate with their job counselors and get the services they need to become employed.

Both the Commissioner of Human Services, Michael O'Keefe, and Governor Ventura have made it clear that they do not want to propose increasing sanctions in the 2000 legislative session. They want legislative consideration of this particular policy "stick" to be coupled with consideration of policy "carrots" (such as extensions to the 60-month time limit) in the 2001 legislative session. Unfortunately, some legislators have seized on the opportunity to take a bigger stick approach now with people in the welfare system, without addressing the broader context of time limits.

Senator Don Samuelson(DFL-Brainerd) and Representative Kevin Goodno (R-Moorhead) are the chief authors, in the Senate and House respectively, of bills to institute 100% sanctions. The bills vary in process -- the timeline and steps to take before eliminating families from the program are different -- but not in effect. Both cut families off of MFIP completely. Neither includes any allowance for payment of shelter costs before discontinuing the family grants. It is expected that the Health and Human Services Policy Committees in the Senate and House will vote on these bills within the next few weeks.

Why Are Increased Sanctions Not a Good Idea?
1. There is a significant evidence showing that current sanction policy is often implemented in an inconsistent and inaccurate manner and that a large percentage of participants in sanction status have barriers that should qualify them for an exemption from the MFIP work requirements. Given this evidence, a full family sanction policy would make the consequences of inconsistent implementation all the more dramatic, without necessarily addressing participants' barriers to compliance. A DHS study of sanctions indicated that fully half of MFIP employment services providers in Minnesota do not perform a case file review of participants in sanction status, as required by state law. An outreach project assisting sanctioned families, conducted by the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis, successfully brought three out of every four families participating in the project back into compliance. Almost half of the participating families were ultimately granted exemptions due to, for example, instances of family crisis, domestic violence, or the disability of a child.

2. In other states, research shows that making sanctions more severe does not clearly lead to greater participation in Since forcing greater participation is the main argument used in support of raising MFIP's maximum sanction, such research is very important.  A Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation evaluation of welfare-to-work programs found that programs which more frequently imposed sanctions did not have higher work participation rates than programs which imposed fewer sanctions. An evaluation by Abt Associates of Delaware's strict sanction policies recommended eliminating full-family sanctions: "The state should consider eliminating permanent full family sanctions, as they do not appear to be more effective than moderate penalties in use elsewhere."

3. 100% sanctions would place enormous costs on already overburdened systems of local governments and communities -- homeless shelters, child protection agencies, and schools. These systems are typically more expensive and punitive and will leave the state's most vulnerable children with a completely inadequate safety net.

It is essential that people concerned about the well-being of children -- and invested in anti-poverty welfare reform that does not follow the example of Wisconsin -- contact their legislators immediately in opposition to legislative proposals to impose 100% sanctions. It is particularly important that members of the Health & Family Security Committee in the Senate and the Health & Human Services Committee in the House who will soon be voting on this legislation hear from constituents. Below is a partial list of members of those committees. A letter is always better than a phone call. Do both if you can. If you do not know your legislator's name or mailing address call Senate Info at 651-296-0504 or House Info at 651-296-2146.

Message:

Don't increase MFIP sanctions!
Don't punch a hole in the safety net for poor kids!

If you would like more information, please contact MN NOW at 651-222-1605
or contact Jason Walsh @ Affirmative Options @ 612-642-1904 or 1-800-289-1904
Thank you for your support of women's rights & women's voices in Minnesota.

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