March
21, 2003 Officials
to Discuss Welfare Reform in Massachusetts
How
has Massachusetts been affected by welfare reform? And what is
the future likely to hold? John A. Wagner, commissioner of the
Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance, and Ellen
Story, a Democratic state representative from Amherst, will discuss
those questions and others in “Welfare Reform in Massachusetts:
What Has Happened? Where Do We Go from Here?” on Thursday,
March 27, at 11 am in the New York Room of Mary Woolley Hall.
John O. Fox, visiting lecturer in complex organizations, who arranged
the event as part of his class, Poverty in the United States,
said that this is a particularly appropriate time to discuss the
issue of welfare, as Congress struggles with the terms for the
reauthorization of the 1996 welfare legislation, and Massachusetts
undertakes a review of its own welfare policies.
“With the withering
economy and withering tax revenues, compared to the buoyant economy
back in 1996 and the years that followed, the challenges are enormous
at the federal and state level,” Fox says. “For example,
President Bush is proposing to require mothers to work forty hours
a week, rather than thirty hours as required currently. There
is much resistance to this initiative. Massachusetts is one of
the few states that doesn’t give any credit for attending
college as a form of work; and it will be interesting to see whether
that policy is likely to be changed. Medicaid is covering less
and less, an enormous problem for the poor who lack health insurance.”
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