LIMA — Ohio Means Jobs Allen County Workforce Development Coordinator Joe Patton is trying to bridge a gap in Allen County’s economy, one that may not be as easy to surpass as it may seem.
“We have over 1,100 jobs right now that we need to fill, but yet I have a population over here that isn’t working and could be,” he said. “So we need to figure out a way to plug them together.”
One of the issues with linking those unemployed with these jobs is creating enough incentive to leave behind various government assistance programs. While Allen County has an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent as of April, which ranks Allen County at 44th out of 88 counties, according to the Ohio Bureau of Labor Market Information, with Auglaize and Putnam County ranking 79th and 84th, respectively, workforce participation rates have suffered. Between 2000 and 2014, Lima’s workforce participation rate dropped 3.9 percent, according to the Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC), although the GOPC did note recently that Lima has started to reverse that trend.
Leaving various government assistance programs behind can mean leaving a lot of money on the table, according to U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana.
“(Patton) walked through the benefits with me, and it was amazing to me,” he said. “For a family of three that is not working, there’s $500 a month in food stamps, $400 in cash assistance, $500 in rent, they get health care, which if you’re buying on the marketplace, has to be at least $500 a month, they get a phone, they get their heat and electric paid for and they get school lunches or breakfast if they have kids in school. It’s around $2,250 a month pre-tax.”
Joel Potts, executive director of the Ohio Job and Family Services Directors Association, said that as Ohio has emerged from the 2008 recession, many of the jobs available to those looking for work do not match up well against what the government offers for assistance, creating a lack of incentive to work.
“What we are facing is not just a slow recovery, but a realignment,” he said. “People in factory jobs were making $20 or $30 an hour were doing fine and then those shut down, and now they’re training for jobs that pay $10 or $12 an hour with no benefits. We’re in a situation I never thought we’d be in before. We’re serving more working poor people than non-working poor people.”
A legislative solution?
To help shrink this reliance on government assistance, Jordan, along with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, plan to introduce legislation this week to reform America’s welfare system. The Welfare Reform and Upward Mobility Act, first introduced in 2016, would mandate able-bodied adults without dependents to work 100 hours per month to activate their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, with such activities as job training and volunteering for non-profit organizations included in that 100-hour mandate. Single parents with children under 6 years old would be exempt from any penalties while still having access to any vocational opportunities the state would offer.
“This is where you can do innovative things,” he said. “Say, this mom is going to be running a daycare so other moms in low-income housing can be working somewhere else. You make it work so that you’re helping people get to a more productive life.”
Jordan also said that putting a time limit on some of these programs, such as the 60-month limit on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits, it could also help spur recipients to take steps to enter the job market.
How big of an impact would this have?
Potts agreed with Jordan that any work to reform the welfare system would have to have a work requirement as a cornerstone.
“If you want to address poverty, it’s through work,” he said.
However, just looking at SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps, Potts said that 75 percent of recipients are elderly, children or disabled, exempting them from the able-bodied work requirement. Additionally, a third of SNAP recipients are only getting $25 a month in food stamps, the elimination of which would not result in a large impact on welfare distribution.
“I think the numbers (Potts) gave us are 13,000 in the county on food stamps, 8,000 families,” Jordan said. “A couple thousand are able-bodied adults without dependents. So yes, it is a subset, but it is a significant subset.”
Additionally, even the term “able-bodied” itself can be somewhat ambiguous, according to Potts, which could make it difficult to assess benefit recipients. Questions could arise over issues such as mental conditions or chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, where an individual could be able-bodied provided they have access to the proper medications.
“That’s the million-dollar question that we ought to be asking,” Potts said. “We had this able-bodied requirement that went into effect a few years ago, and we had over 100,000 individuals that fell into that category that we had to bring in to assess. I remember one of our directors saying, ‘I wish everyone could come and spend some time in our lobby and see this.’ Walmart may be hiring, but they’re not hiring these people. You could tell there were other issues, other things going on.”
Jordan acknowledged the issue, saying that is why, using the example of a diabetic, benefits should not necessarily be an all-or-none choice.
“That example is why you need to make some other changes, including a sort of sliding scale on certain benefits,” he said. “Once they start working, you don’t want them just to drop off.”
Patton echoed that notion, saying there needs to be a weaning-off period for people trying to transition from government assistance into the workforce.
“We’ve been talking with (Jordan) was not necessarily a cut, but a benefit in going to work in easing the cliff to where you get up to a certain point, your benefits fall off,” he said. “Once they get to that point, they’re not incentivized to work or they want a job that pays less.”
It’s not just about the pay rate
For Patton, the work requirement is not simply just about the pay rate, but also about learning the “soft” skills needed to succeed in better jobs, even to the point of just adjusting to being in a work environment.
“This is a step in the right direction,” he said. “As you build your skill set, your reputation and your resume, that’s what’s in demand. If you’ll show up and do the job, you’re very marketable now. I would argue that within three years, if you follow that path, you could get up to $15 an hour.”
The work requirement could also help the worker network with other employers, leading to better jobs in the future, according to Patton.
“The saying is true,” he said. “It really is about who you know.”
Potts is hopeful that the proposed work requirement will not be the sole source of welfare reform but will instead be coupled with assistance in transitioning to careers rather than just entry-level jobs and working to create more higher-wage job opportunities and create a smoother pathway to a sustainable income.
“It needs to be a package,” he said. “Everybody thinks there is a silver bullet, but there isn’t.”
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