North Carolina 's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, called Work First, is based on the premise that parents have a responsibility to support themselves and their children. Through Work First, parents can get short-term training and other services to help them become employed and self-sufficient, but the responsibility is theirs, and most families have two years to move off Work First Family Assistance. Work First emphasizes three strategies:
1. Diversion : Keeping families off welfare by helping them cope with unexpected emergencies or setbacks.
Under Work First, qualifying families can get a one-time payment equivalent to up to three months worth of cash Work First benefits, based on a needs assessment by the county worker, Medicaid, child care and Food and Nutrition Services, if eligible, and other supportive services.
2. Work: Shortening the length of time that families are on Work First Family Assistance by making work mandatory and by limiting how long a family can receive cash assistance.
To receive Work First Family Assistance benefits, parents must register with the First Stop Employment Assistance Program, sign a Mutual Responsibility Agreement (MRA) and, once they move into the work components of the program, they can continue to receive benefits for up to 24 months. In most cases, families who have reached the 24-month limit cannot receive Work First Family Assistance for three years.
3. Retention: Helping families to stay off public assistance by encouraging them to save and by helping to make sure they really are better off working than on welfare.
Work First increased limits on savings and vehicles, and the state legislature raised income eligibility limits for subsidized child care to ease the burden on low-income, working families. To help families stay employed, counties are also providing services, such as transportation, to families whose income is at or below 200 percent of poverty.
Ultimately, North Carolina 's goal is to help all families move to self-sufficiency. Most will make it all the way; some, because of hardship or disability, will have a harder time.
North Carolina's success thus far at helping families move from cash assistance to work has led to a broadened focus for the Work First Program. No longer is the focus just on helping those families who receive cash assistance move off the rolls. While we remain committed to continuing our assistance to those families, we have added the flexibility and program structure for counties to provide former Work First families with job retention and child and family enrichment services designed to help ensure families' long-term success. Further, since child support is critical to ensuring families' success, we have expanded the Work First Program to allow counties to provide work-related services to non-custodial parents of Work First children.
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: Jaskalas
New York City... maybe the people who can't afford to live there should get the hell out.
No need for tax payers to prop up a city whose workers need welfare to survive.
So should all the poor in the U.S. be rounded up and shipped out somewhere?
Originally posted by: spidey07
There needs to be some kind of criminal charge for being on welfare more than a year. Some kind of physical punishment or hard labor. Something to show these leaches that what they are doing is wrong and should stop immediately. Only when you let these leaches suffer the consequences of their stupidity and poor decisions will they change. Until that happens we will always have this problem or until we just say enough is enough, no more free shit, get off your ass and get a job.
Originally posted by: blanghorst
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: Jaskalas
New York City... maybe the people who can't afford to live there should get the hell out.
No need for tax payers to prop up a city whose workers need welfare to survive.
So should all the poor in the U.S. be rounded up and shipped out somewhere?
Should the government support them?
Originally posted by: senseamp
LOL, $150/month? Where is the outrage?
Originally posted by: Carmen813
Go volunteer someplace and educate yourself.
Originally posted by: CitizenKain
Originally posted by: Carmen813
Go volunteer someplace and educate yourself.
Republicans on this forum are incapable of both, especially the learning part.
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: CitizenKain
Republicans on this forum are incapable of both, especially the learning part.
Amen brother Amen
Originally posted by: spidey07
There needs to be some kind of criminal charge for being on welfare more than a year. Some kind of physical punishment or hard labor. Something to show these leaches that what they are doing is wrong and should stop immediately. Only when you let these leaches suffer the consequences of their stupidity and poor decisions will they change. Until that happens we will always have this problem or until we just say enough is enough, no more free shit, get off your ass and get a job.
Originally posted by: amdhunter
Originally posted by: spidey07
There needs to be some kind of criminal charge for being on welfare more than a year. Some kind of physical punishment or hard labor. Something to show these leaches that what they are doing is wrong and should stop immediately. Only when you let these leaches suffer the consequences of their stupidity and poor decisions will they change. Until that happens we will always have this problem or until we just say enough is enough, no more free shit, get off your ass and get a job.
Yes, because there are so many jobs out there right now. There are people out there with degrees coming out of every orifice of their bodies who can't find work; how is someone who has been poor their whole lives supposed to compete?
Not even the fast-food joints are hiring these days.
Why are we outraged over her daughter (who's financial status is unknown) paying her cell phone bill...? Someone brought up a land-line, if she's barely scraping the bottom of the barrel I'd imagine (hope?) she'd be smart enough to not to pay for duplicate services. But without knowing her, or breaking into her house, we just can't tell. But, there is good news...[Georgeanna Hicks] also depends on her daughter, who pays for things like her cellphone bill.
...I don't think that cell phone will be around much longer... (and I saved money on my car insurance by switching to Geico)But she said her daughter recently lost her job, and is struggling to keep up with her own expenses.
?I can go look for a job more often now,? she said. ?I?ll do my laundry more often. I?ll spend it on things like toilet paper, lotion, dishwashing soap. I can?t really buy much of anything, but it?ll help me.?
I think it helps to point out that it's the poor and the sick who are the first to get cut off at the knees when the shit hits the fan. They poor are typically unskilled and are a large group competing to enter a market that pays meagerly, sometimes requiring two jobs (which are being shed in large numbers) to get by. Even if she goes back to school she's going to be broke for a while.Several people interviewed on Thursday said they felt nickel-and-dimed by the growing cost of living, and especially by things like the higher subway fares, the rising cost of food, and even seemingly minuscule price increases at the laundry.
Huh, frequently? I hope he's growing quickly and not keeping up with trends...[Louise Ellis] spends most of her spare cash on Dequan, who frequently needs new shoes and clothes. ?Even on sale, they?re still expensive,? she said.
While I fully agree that something needs to be done, I think this would never fly. If proposed as law I'm sure this would be shot down immediately as gender descriminatory. And If both parents are illegal, it sounds great, but if only one is how do we come to this conclusion that the baby is as well? If one of the parents is American and the child was born on American soil, the baby is pretty much American. This is especially problematic if the mother is deported, I don't know law but I imagine that the child would be deported as well, even if it's against the American father's wishes. That said, I don't like the idea of people getting preggers over here just for residency. We should really make sure someone is a resident for a minimum of a few (5+) years before they are eligible for any money, maybe 2+ for any minor services I can't really think of at the moment.Needs to be some kind of law that says the child is not a citizen if the mother is not.
Originally posted by: Rhonda the Sly
While I fully agree that something needs to be done, I think this would never fly. If proposed as law I'm sure this would be shot down immediately as gender descriminatory. And If both parents are illegal, it sounds great, but if only one is how do we come to this conclusion that the baby is as well? If one of the parents is American and the child was born on American soil, the baby is pretty much American. This is especially problematic if the mother is deported, I don't know law but I imagine that the child would be deported as well, even if it's against the American father's wishes. That said, I don't like the idea of people getting preggers over here just for residency. We should really make sure someone is a resident for a minimum of a few (5+) years before they are eligible for any money, maybe 2+ for any minor services I can't really think of at the moment.Needs to be some kind of law that says the child is not a citizen if the mother is not.
Originally posted by: eleison
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: Jaskalas
New York City... maybe the people who can't afford to live there should get the hell out.
No need for tax payers to prop up a city whose workers need welfare to survive.
So should all the poor in the U.S. be rounded up and shipped out somewhere?
yes, California...
Originally posted by: Carmen813
This thread is full of a lot of assumptions, and very little actual valuable discussion. I work with people on welfare everyday, and you know what, they are just like us. Out of the dozens I have met, I would say 2 families are gaming the system. Go volunteer someplace and educate yourself.