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Show 1 Work Limitation i Raised for Welfare Recipients j On April 1, 1977 Utah r became the first state in the nation to allow two parent j welfare households to work over 100 hours per month and ft still receive some assistance based upon income. Although some state officials (Norm Angus, Deputy Director of Utah State Department of Social Services, and Gus Panos, previous director of Salt Lake APA) initially expressed fears of rising enrollment of AFDC-UF due to the new work incentive, the opposite has occurred thus far. In a recent report from Gus Panos of the State Office of Assistance Payments Administration a caseload decrease of 16.2 percent (from 860 to 720) was cited for the period from April 1, 1977 to June 30, 1977. Mr. Panos also reported that 102 (or 14 percent) of the 720 current AFDC-Uf households have employed fathers. Mr. Panos goes on to say "...if the progression formula were to continue, 56.4 percent of the cases with an unemployed parent would be participating at the end of one year... this would mean a constant figure of 423 cases in the AFDC-UW programs. "(AFDC-UW is a new code referring to recipients households with employed fathers). These findings seem to suggest that removing systematic work disincentives is an effective means of reducing welfare rolls and promoting self-sufficiency. In addition, Utah Issues estimates the new policy change will initiate a taxpayer savings of about $1 million per year due to reduced rolls and reduced benefits for employed recipients. We at Utah Issues commend com-mend the State Legislature, State Department of Social Services, and Governor Matheson for taking a leadership role in the nation toward sound welfare reform and for realizing the importance im-portance of promoting self-sufficiency self-sufficiency rather than welfare dependency. |