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Show Iron County People Receiving Public Assistance Increase During Past Year Between Aug., 1950 and Aug., 1951, the total number of persons per-sons receiving public assistance in Iron county increased 12.4 per cent, according to a report released re-leased this week by Utah Foundation, Foun-dation, non-profit tax research agency. Throughout the state, there has been a 9.2 per cent decrease during this same period. per-iod. The per cent of population receiving public assistance in Iron county during Aug., 1951, was 2.81 per cent, compared with a state-wide percentage of 3.77 per cent, the study reveals. The reduction in the number of welfare recipients in Utah has made possible cost-of-living increases in-creases in welfare grants for those persons remaining on the public assistance rolls, Foundation Founda-tion analysts observe. A major factor in recent grant increases has been the effort to cushion the Impact of higher living costs for individuals dependent upon public pub-lic assistance, the report continues. con-tinues. Expenditures for public welfare wel-fare In Utah during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1951, amounted to $11,879,641, the report re-port states. Of this sum $G,287,596 or 52.9 per cent of the total came from state funds, and $5,592,045 or 47.1 per cent of the total came from Federal aid. Utah, compared with other states, is characterized by higher high-er than average per capita expenditures ex-penditures for public assistance with lower than average resources, re-sources, as measured by per capita cap-ita income, to meet these expenditures, expen-ditures, the Foundation study indicates. in-dicates. Average assistance grants in Utah also are considerably consid-erably higher than those in most other states. Developments leading to the recent move by Congress to amend the Federal Social Security Securi-ty Act to allow states to open their welfare records to public inspection are traced in the Utah Foundation report. A summary of major arguments both for and against opening welfare rolls in Utah is included in the study. The fact that Utah does not hold relatives responsible for the support of welfare recipients is not consistent with the requirement require-ment that relatives must meet the cost of patients' care at the state welfare institutions, according accord-ing to Foundation analysts. Although it is known that some welfare recipients have dissipated dissipat-ed their public assistance grants on luxury items, liquor and gam-bling gam-bling rather than purchasing basic ba-sic necessities for their families, Federal regulations prohibit any activity on the part of state and local welfare agencies to supervise super-vise the expenditure of grants In ! which the Federal Government ' participates, the Foundation stu-' dy notes. In the General Assistance Assist-ance program, all money is provided pro-vided from state funds, and the! State is not bound by these Fed-! eral regulations. In such cases, the agency may and does reg-" ulate the expenditures of grants made to known alcoholics, the report relates. According to the Utah Foundation report, some cases involving persons incapa-! ble of managing their own affairs af-fairs have been transferred from one of the Federal participation programs to a General Assistance program where the expenditure of grants could be supervised by the agency. This practice, however, involves a loss of Federal Fed-eral aid to the State. The Utah Foundation report discloses that certain welfare re-, cipients assert that they do not receive any support from relatives, rela-tives, yet relatives claim these same recipients as dependents for Federal Income tax purposes. Detection of such cases is made extremely difficult by the lack of a free exchange of information informa-tion between the Federal Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Utah Department of Public Welfare, Wel-fare, the report notes. Passage of the Uniform Reciprocal Recip-rocal Enforcement of Support Act by the special session of the 1951 Utah Legislature makes it more difficult for husbands and fathers fa-thers to escape legal obligations to their families by moving out of the state, it is pointed out by the Foundation study. Since many deserted families become public assistance cases the law eventually may prove to have an important influence upon welfare expenditures. |