Benefits

Public assistance programs provide low-income families, the elderly and the disabled with essential support and income stabilization, especially during difficult economic times.

MLRI’s Public Benefits Unit tackles systemic barriers to accessing benefits through litigation and policy advocacy.  It also provides technical assistance and training to legal and social service advocates helping low-income individuals and families access public benefit programs, particularly cash assistance, subsidized child care, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps), and emergency shelter and rehousing services for homeless families with children [please see our Homelessness section for more information on MLRI's family homelessness advocacy].

Until the economy improves, the primary goal of MLRI’s Benefits Unit is to preserve the programs that are most critical to the lowest income families and individuals in Massachusetts.  In particular, MLRI leads efforts to protect current cash benefits – Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC) and Emergency Aid to Elders, Disabled and Children (EAEDC). MLRI is also a leader on the local and national level in efforts to combat hunger by increasing participation in the SNAP program.

Fighting Food Insecurity & Hunger:

Hunger and food insecurity contribute to a range of harmful outcomes, from impeding the healthy development of children to forcing families with limited incomes to choose between food, housing and medicine. The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides an essential safety net for low-income families, the elderly and people with disabilities.

MLRI’s nationally-recognized Food SNAP Advocacy Project uses legal and policy advocacy to alleviate food insecurity and hunger in Massachusetts by increasing SNAP participation and benefits amounts.  The Project is a collaborative effort involving local legal services programs, food banks and food pantries, health care organizations and community based organizations and relies on MLRI’s expertise in the technical intricacies of the SNAP program and its ability to translate that expertise into systemic change.

Between 2001 and 2003, Massachusetts had the lowest rate of food stamp participation among eligible households in the nation. Thanks in significant part to MLRI’s advocacy and technical assistance, food stamp/SNAP participation in Massachusetts increased from 226,000 households in January 2005 to 454,000 households in July 2011 - one of the largest increases in the country. Massachusetts now ranks in the top 10 states in SNAP participation.

Since 2005, MLRI has been in the forefront of developing policy recommendations to reduce the amount of verifications, the length of applications, the number of interviews and urges the state to revise other administrative tasks that create barriers to low income households. 

MLRI was the lead advocate in developing and securing USDA approval of a pilot in to provide automated SNAP benefits for SSI recipients, resulting in over 60,000 SSI recipients being sent SNAP EBT cards and enrolled in the program during 2005 and 2006.  MLRI negotiated a special fuel assistance benefit in 2007 for SNAP recipients to increase the value of the shelter deduction and thus the value of the monthly benefits, with the largest impact on elder and disabled households.  In 2008, MLRI worked with the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation to secure USDA approval of a waiver for a standard medical deduction for elder or disabled households.  In 2009, we secured a USDA waiver of the interview at recertification of SNAP – the first in the country.

MLRI worked with our Congressional Delegation and New England anti-hunger advocates in 2010 to protect SNAP benefits from a reduction in the utility allowance during the winter of 2010/2011, preserving over $1.1M in monthly SNAP benefits for six months.  In addition, MLRI secured a state policy change in 2010 to allow low-income community college students in career and technical education programs to qualify for SNAP, many of whom live at home but were excluded from their family’s benefits.

Indirectly, MLRI’s Food/SNAP Project serves all Massachusetts residents by generating increased economic activity and by reducing the economic costs of hunger– including the costs of impaired educational outcomes for children.  The U.S. Dep’t of Agriculture estimates that each dollar in SNAP benefit spending generates approximately $1.84 in increased economic activity; SNAP benefits increase spending at local supermarkets and grocery stores, reduce the demand on food pantries and soup kitchens, and free up low income households’ cash income for increased spending on other basic necessities including additional and better quality food, housing and heat.

MLRI will continue to identify ongoing policy issues and coordinate legislative, administrative and community-based responses to eliminate additional barriers to SNAP program participation and mitigate the devastating effects of hunger has on low-income children and vulnerable populations.

Protecting Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children:

Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC) is a state program administered by the MA Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA). Funded in part with the federal Temporary Assistance for Need Families block grant, the program provides cash assistance to needy families with dependent children and pregnant women, to help them meet the basic needs of their children.

MLRI has led the effort to protect this program, persuading state legislators and administrators not to adopt onerous restrictions on benefits that would harm poor children and increase state costs. For a number of years, MLRI has successfully opposed proposals to impose work requirements on parents with disabilities, parents of very young children, and caregivers of disabled family members. In 2009, MLRI defeated a Patrick Administration proposal to terminate or drastically reduce TAFDC benefits for 9,100 TAFDC families headed by a disabled parent who receives federal SSI benefits. MLRI-led efforts have persuaded the Legislature not to bar the use of cash assistance benefits for certain items because there is no way to implement such restrictions without also preventing recipients from using their benefits for necessities such as rent, utilities and transportation.

Thanks to MLRI efforts, state budgets have annually included language requiring advance notice to the legislature before the Administration makes cuts in benefits or eligibility. This language has been a key tool for protecting benefit programs because it gives MLRI and its allies an opportunity to work with the Legislature and the Administration to persuade them not to adopt a proposed cut.

Preserving the Children's Clothing Allowance: In the summer of 2010, MLRI convinced the Patrick Administration to reverse a decision to eliminate the annual $150 per child TAFDC clothing allowance scheduled to be paid in September by threatening to file litigation citing violation of the advance notice requirement.  Because of the state’s poor fiscal condition, the Governor and the House of Representatives proposed to eliminate the clothing allowance for September 2011.  MLRI led a statewide campaign to preserve the clothing allowance, emphasizing the critical importance of having decent clothes to children’s dignity and success in school. Because of MLRI’s work, the Governor and the Legislature agreed to provide the full $150 clothing allowance in September for 75,000 children.

Preserving the Transporation Allowance: MLRI advocacy this year also preserved a small transportation allowance which the Governor had proposed to eliminate. The transportation payment ($40 a month) helps about 1,000 recipients a month get to education and training programs that will provide the skills and credentials they need to secure jobs that will support their families.

Maximizing Fairness in the Distribution of Child Care Subsidies:

MLRI (together with Greater Boston Legal Services) is the lead organization in Massachusetts working to achieve clarity and fairness in the distribution of child care subsidies.

MLRI has been working with the Department of Early Education and Care to improve a recently proposed package of child care subsidy regulations. Among other things, the proposed regulations would have required parents to prove that they have sought and are continuing to seek child support from the noncustodial parent.

MLRI met with Early Education and Care Board members and staff, presented detailed testimony in opposition, and secured testimony from others, including a lawyer in Pennsylvania who described how similar rules (since repealed) in Pennsylvania led parents to give up their child care subsidies rather risk violence or jeopardize the delicate relationships they had negotiated with the noncustodial parent. Other proposed provisions which MLRI is seeking to improve include restrictions on subsidies for parents or children with special needs, onerous documentation requirements to establish eligibility, and procedures for termination and review that do not comply with Due Process. The agency has postponed issuance of the regulations to give further consideration to our objections.

MLRI also provides consultation and back up to advocates in Massachusetts who are helping parents negotiate the child care agency’s policies and procedures.

Promoting Asset Development for Low-Income Populations:

Asset development is increasingly recognized as a critical component in the effort to assist individuals and families as they seek to achieve long-term, sustainable economic security. Unfortunately, state benefit program rules impede asset development. Among other things, families are denied cash assistance benefits if they have more than $2,500 in savings or a car with an equity value over $5,000.  Even lower asset limits apply to individuals without dependent children. State rules also create barriers to families trying to acquire education or training—the human capital necessary to achieve economic stability.

MLRI’s Asset Development Project works to reform counterproductive state policies and procedures that discourage or penalize low-income individuals and families from building assets. In 2008 and 2009, MLRI persuaded the state’s Asset Development Commission to issue preliminary and final recommendations that specifically address the concerns of very low-income families and individuals, including:

• Raising the asset limits for families and individuals and allowing them to own a reliable car
• Increasing the deduction for work expenses for families with earnings
• Allowing families to count education or training towards their cash assistance work requirement for two years instead of just one
• Easing rules that impose a lengthy disqualification on families who receive a non-recurring lump sum payment (e.g., personal injury or workers compensation award) if the family puts the money in a special account or uses it for essential expenses
• Allowing families that currently receive or formerly received TAFDC benefits to keep more of the child support that is paid for their children

In the 2011-2012 Legislative session, MLRI and its allies are asking the Legislature to enact pending legislation that would implement these important recommendations. MLRI also filed a class action lawsuit in November 2011 challenging the state’s imposition of its lump sum disqualification rule on families who receive a payment of back child support for the period before the family went on assistance.