Something strange and nefarious seems to be happening in Mississippi. Last year, more than 11,000 of its low-income residents applied for welfare benefits through the state—part of the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. Of those applicants, only 167 people, or just 1.42 percent were approved. Every other applicant was denied or withdrew, which means that Mississippi is essentially refusing to give out any aid to families in need. And this is nothing new. Apparently, this has been on the rise over the last few years.
The numbers follow a disturbing trend in the state over the past several years. Between 2003 and 2010, according to a report by the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative (MLICCI), roughly half of the applicants to the state’s TANF program were rejected, already a large share of poor people denied assistance. But then in 2011, the rejection rate catapulted to 89 percent. It has gradually increased every year since.
States are generally incentivized to reduce their TANF caseloads, given that any unused money can be redirected to other purposes. But Mississippi stands out for its astonishing rejection rate.
Of course, no one seems quite able to explain exactly why the state has such an enormous rejection rate although there seems to be plenty of blame directed at welfare recipients.
The state did not respond to repeated requests from ThinkProgress for an explanation of what changed, but it did send a statement saying, “Upon review of our caseload, there are a significant number of TANF applications being denied; however, there are many reasons the denials are taking place.” Those include failing to meet eligibility criteria, unresolved noncompliance issues, an ongoing mandatory work sanction period, unverified compliance with upfront requirements, failing to provide necessary data, voluntarily quitting or being fired from a job for one’s own behavior, failing to cooperate with child support enforcement, failing to show up for appointments, or voluntarily withdrawing an application.
But this is quite typical of the discourse surrounding welfare policy—blame the poor for their conditions and not the lawmakers who craft really bad policy to begin with. In the explanation above, the state conveniently left out that there are some factors that have made getting approved even more difficult for applicants. For example, the passage of legislation in 2006 that requires residents to look for work or attend orientation programs before their applications can be approved, without the kind of subsidies that TANF provides such as childcare or transportation. In other words, in order to qualify for welfare in Mississippi, you already have to be looking for work or attending job training. But if you have kids or need a ride to work, good luck because the state won’t pay for that until after you’ve proven that you are actually looking for the job. Who exactly is running things there, anyway? You’d get more logic if you put Forrest Gump in charge.
And then there’s stuff like this which indicates a complete failure of the system.
The state has other punitive aspects of its program: time limits, a cap on benefits beyond a certain family size, and sanctions that mean if one person in a family loses benefits, everyone loses benefits.
It’s hard to know for sure what has happened to all of the people Mississippi has rejected from TANF and how they’re surviving. “There’s always the chance that someone who is denied reapplies and gets approved at another point in time,” [Matt Williams, Director of Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative said.] But, he added, “A lot is required of people to become eligible, and once they go through all those administrative hurdles, to only have their application denied, I think most people will probably not try to apply again.”
So Mississippi will continue to make sure poor families stay poor. In the richest country in the world, this is really shameful.