Walker's welfare plan: Expand work requirements to parents

Wisconsin would expand work requirements for food stamp recipients to parents of school-age children, under a broad welfare overhaul Gov. Scott Walker proposed Monday.

Walker said his plan to require Food Share recipients to work a job or receive state job training would begin as a pilot program in a few counties and not affect the children's benefits. The announcement contained few other details — from where the pilot would start and when to how many people would be affected, with the governor saying he would detail the costs and savings from the plan in his budget bill.

With his budget address just weeks away and a potential run for a third term looming next year, the GOP governor is laying out a platform to campaign for re-election. His pitch: work with President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to make deeper changes to government, such as another work requirement for able-bodied adults receiving housing assistance.

RELATED:   Scott Walker wants fewer federal rules from Trump

In a statewide tour Monday with stops in Milwaukee, Green Bay, Eau Claire and Madison, Walker said the proposal would build on the 1990s welfare to work initiatives of former Gov. Tommy Thompson.

"What we're talking about is really the foundation (Thompson) built back in the '90s with Wisconsin Works. This is now a giant step forward, going back to the future, restoring part of what was included in Wisconsin Works, or W-2," Walker said. "We want to help people get back in the workforce, not be settled into assistance."

Walker's proposal could require action from the new Trump administration or the passage of laws by Congress, as well.

Stacy Dean, a policy analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities specializing in food assistance programs, said Wisconsin could require parents on Food Share to work now under federal law but would have to provide potentially expensive job slots to all those parents who want them.

Dean said that it's possible Walker wants to kick parents off Food Share if they can't find a job on their own.

"It would be unprecedented," Dean said.

Tom Evenson, Walker's deputy communications director, disputed that, saying unemployed Food Share recipients would remain on the program if they enroll in job training.

Walker also wants the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority to seek a federal rule exemption to pilot a housing voucher work requirement for an undisclosed number of working age able-bodied adults in a housing voucher program at an undisclosed cost.

Barbara Sard, another policy analyst at the Center For Budget and Policy Priorities, said that likely would have a limited impact since WHEDA handles only a small part of the federal money helping Wisconsin families afford rent. Other agencies like the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee also receive part of the federal money.

Walker spokesman Jack Jablonski said that the governor believes the Trump administration and Congress will work together to ensure Wisconsin can pursue his plan.

"Where we're going to need changes we're confident we're going to get them," he said.

State Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) said Walker's Food Share plan "lacks details" and raised concerns it would harm children.

"May I ask, how are you going to be able to only penalize the adult and not the child?" Taylor said in an interview. "In the end, it is going to be a lack of a portion for the family."

RELATED:   Obamacare critics want tougher insurance mandate — for drivers

RELATED:   Vos calls for $300 million more for roads

Walker in December wrote a letter to Trump pushing for greater state control, such as drug testing for some people receiving food stamps paid for by federal taxpayers. A top appointee in the Obama administration recently said Walker's proposal violates federal law and cannot proceed without an act of Congress.

Walker has frequently said state employers need more workers and that he wants to help meet that need. To do it, he proposed Monday:

• Requiring parents with children between the ages of 6 and 18 — there are 7,300 such Food Share households with no income in Wisconsin — to meet similar Food Share work requirements to those he put forward in 2013 for able-bodied adults without children. That proposal required beneficiaries to either work 80 hours a month or receive some basic job training. Those 2013 training requirements are costing  $18 million in state money over two years and have led to 21,200 able-bodied Food Share participants in the state finding work and  64,200 state residents losing their federally funded benefits.
• Continuing Food Share payments for children whose parent loses their benefits for failing the work and training requirement. It would be difficult, however, to ensure that the children's benefits weren't used by that parent. 
• Phasing out public childcare benefits more gradually so that parents won't be penalized so steeply if they start making more money at their job. At an undisclosed cost or savings, the measure would extend a similar phaseout to disabled recipients of Medicaid health benefits for the needy. 
• Providing additional income tax credits for 18-year-olds who because of their age must leave the foster care or disabled benefits programs as well as additional credits for low-income parents who are making their child support payments on time. It was not disclosed how much the credits would be, how they would affect the state budget or how many people might receive them. 
• Giving more job training and assistance to inmates before and after their release from prison.
• Decreasing state licensing requirements to reduce barriers to working.

“Governor Walker is very passionate about this. He wants to do the same thing (I did)," Thompson, the former GOP governor, said at a Capitol news conference.

But state Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) called Walker's plan "morally unfair and unjust."

"We must treat people with dignity and respect and provide them with real opportunities if we actually want to improve crisis-level poverty in Wisconsin communities and across our nation," Johnson said.