Fewer people signing up for welfare than expected

State officials forecast that welfare rolls would reach 79,000 by next year. But a slowdown in the number of applicants prompted the state to reduce that prediction to 75,839, according to Families First, Tennessee’s welfare-to-work program.

Officials cited an improving economy for the decreased welfare demand.

Job growth has been strong in job areas available to people leaving welfare — such as at fast-food restaurants and in department stores, said Bill Fox, a University of Tennessee economist and head of the school’s Center for Business and Economic Research.

The welfare rolls are still growing, just not as much as was expected.

For the 18 months from June 2002 to November 2003, welfare participation rose 15 percent said Ed Lake, deputy commissioner for the state Department of Human Services. From November 2003 to November 2004, enrollment growth slowed to less than 1 percent, he said.

The number of families getting food stamps continued to grow at a higher 1 percent rate in that same period, he said.

Families First has a combined federal and state budget of $191.5 million.

Misty Shelton and her 7-week-old daughter, Jaida, are new enrollees, signing up in August for $142 a month on welfare and another $271 a month in food stamps. The 41-year-old said she is trying to transition from life as a prison inmate and drug addict to responsible motherhood.

“I don’t want to live off the government. I want to provide for my own self, but I need to get at a point in my life where I can do that,” Shelton said.

With fewer people signing up, Families First will use the extra $13.8 million to increase checks for low-income families who get day-care reimbursements, and to increase the income thresholds for the program, state Human Services Commissioner Gina Lodge told Gov. Phil Bredesen during budget hearings in mid-December.

Bredesen, however, might shift some of that money to other departments.

“I would have, in this environment, to take advantage of some of those savings,” said Bredesen, who faces a tight 2005-06 budget.

Families First, which requires welfare participants to be in jobs, school or training for 40 hours a week, began in September 1996. It also places a limit on how long a person can be on welfare.

It replaced the traditional welfare program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, in 1996.

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Information from: The Tennessean, http://www.tennessean.com