[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 8, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 THE NEED FOR WELFARE REFORM IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Torkildsen] is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. TORKILDSEN. Madam Speaker, tonight and over the next few weeks, I 
will take the floor during special orders to talk about a subject that 
is often emotional and always controversial. All the same, it is in 
desperate need of action.
  I am talking about the welfare system in the United States today.
  We have allowed a program designed to assist those in need to become 
a monster that too often turns into a long-term addiction. Instead of 
helping families stay together through tough times, the welfare system 
encourages families to split apart.
  Instead of encouraging single parents to work to find jobs skills, 
the American welfare system penalizes those who wish to work, and 
discourages work from any parent who wishes to keep health insurance 
while taking even an entry level job.
  Reform is not enough; we need to completely overhaul the welfare 
system.
  Madam Speaker, a newspaper that circulates in my district--the 
Pulitzer Prize-winning Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, MA and reporters Brad 
Goldstein and John Gill, and editors Alan White and Dan Warner--
conducted a year-long investigation of the welfare system as it affects 
the Merrimac Valley area of northeastern Massachusetts. The abuses 
documented and the problems identified could happen anywhere in our 
country.

  I will read the series during future special orders to draw attention 
to this massive problem. Today I want to focus on an overview to 
problems in our welfare system, and to specifically mention one problem 
which the Federal Government can quickly correct. The fact that 
prisoners in jail for misdemeanors can still collect supplemental 
security, or SSI, benefits.
  Current law prevents felons from collecting SSI benefits, but not 
those convicted of misdemeanors. This means that convicts serving up to 
1 year in most States, and up to 2\1/2\ years in some States, can still 
collect SSI benefits.
  I have introduced H.R. 3251, with 14 current cosponsors, to end this 
abuse. No prisoner convicted of a crime and serving time should be 
defrauding the taxpayers by collecting SSI while in prison.
  We must change the welfare system as we know it. I hope this series 
will begin to outline some of the many problems in the current welfare 
system, lead to quick action to prohibit SSI benefits for prisoners, 
and begin debate on a major overhaul of the entire welfare system.
  The first article I would like to read is entitled:

                 [From the Lawrence (MA) Eagle-Tribune]

                     When Welfare Is a Way of Life

                          (By Brad Goldstein)

       A chasm of age and experience separates the worlds of Donna 
     Wrenn and Rosemary Ortiz.
       Mrs. Wrenn, 45, is a high school graduate, divorced and a 
     grandmother. She is of German, Scottish and English 
     extraction. She lives on Prospect Hill in Lawrence.
       Ms. Ortiz, 26, is Puerto Rican, a high school dropout who 
     went back for her high school equivalency diploma and a 
     single mother of four. She lives in South Lawrence.
       Despite their differences, a common thread runs through 
     their lives.
       Mrs. Wrenn and Ms. Ortiz have spent nearly 20 years each on 
     Aid to Families With Dependent Children, or AFDC.
       Mrs. Wrenn said she started collecting welfare when her 
     marriage turned sour and her options ran out.
       Ms. Ortiz was a child when her parents went to the welfare 
     system for help. Today she is a welfare mother herself.
       Now the two women, for different reasons, are trapped in 
     the welfare system. They say they would like different lives 
     but they have no incentive to break free.
       These women are part of the silent majority of welfare 
     recipients in the Lawrence area. They have seen a system of 
     temporary aid become a permanent way of life for them and, in 
     some cases, for their children.
       Once every six months to a year, they go to the local 
     welfare office and speak to a social worker who inquires 
     about the children's education, their father's whereabouts 
     and the possibility of job training.
       The only other contact comes when they receive a welfare 
     check in the mail every two weeks.
       Names of welfare recipients are kept confidential but both 
     Mrs. Wrenn and Ms. Ortiz were willing to talk publicly about 
     their lives.
       Ms. Ortiz said it didn't matter to her because people know 
     she is on welfare when they see her at the welfare office.
       Mrs. Wrenn's monthly budget consists of her $538 check from 
     AFDC, which includes child support payments, $181 in food 
     stamps, $1,245 in state-funded foster care stipends for her 
     three grandchildren and a $500 monthly Section 8 rental 
     subsidy.
       That is $2,514 a month, or $30,168 a year tax-free, the 
     equivalent of a private-sector job paying $45,434 in taxable 
     income. She also has free health insurance through Medicaid, 
     including dental coverage, for herself and five children.
       ``It's hard running a household with the income I 
     receive,'' Mrs. Wrenn said. ``My welfare check is only enough 
     for two of my kids. . . . I believe that's why people (on 
     welfare) are working under the table and not reporting it.''
       Ms. Ortiz receives $686 a month in AFDC benefits, $268 a 
     month in food stamps, $200 in child support payments, a $339 
     Social Security check--for one of two asthmatic children--and 
     a $650 monthly Section 8 rental subsidy.
       The total is $25,716 a year, tax-free, equivalent to 
     taxable pay of $38,730 a year.
       For Mrs. Wrenn, the prospect of work is a nightmare. She 
     said her health, age and family needs all prevent her from 
     entering the job market. She has not been employed since 
     December 1980.
       Ms. Ortiz, on the other hand, flatly refuses to work unless 
     the state provides her with day-care and health benefits. She 
     has held a job for only two weeks during the nine years since 
     she had her first child and joined the welfare rolls. She 
     quit that job when her son became sick.
       Statistics made public by the welfare department show these 
     Lawrence women are typical in many ways.
       Nearly 43 percent of AFDC recipients in the Lawrence area 
     have never held a job.
       Department of Public Welfare statistics also show that one 
     in four AFDC recipients in Greater Lawrence has collected 
     welfare for more than five years, 7 percent above the 
     statewide average.
       State Welfare commissioner Joseph V. Gallant and Mary 
     Claire Kennedy, director of the Lawrence welfare office, say 
     the main problem with the welfare system is it fosters long-
     term dependency.
       ``Years ago, people were much more reluctant to go to the 
     welfare office. Not any more. One reason for that change is 
     there is a growing welfare mentality. A good number of people 
     are generational,'' Mr. Gallant said.


                       misfortunes led to welfare

       Mrs. Wrenn said a series of personal misfortunes first put 
     her on welfare in the 1970s. Her ex-husband, who died last 
     year, was an alcoholic who refused to work, she said.
       She took a job as a stitcher in a Lawrence shoe factory and 
     received extra income from the welfare department. When her 
     ex-husband threatened to kill her, Mr. Wrenn said, she left 
     him.
       ``It was a terrible relationship,'' she said. ``I basically 
     got married to get out of the house. I stayed with him for 14 
     years because I felt I had nowhere else to go.''
       A short-lived relationship with a friend of her husband led 
     to two other children. She made an attempt to return to work 
     in 1980, but said she quit after suffering seizures and back 
     problems.
       ``I'm scared to go back into the work system at my age,'' 
     she said. ``I find it easier for people to stay on welfare 
     once you're on because you get more benefits.''
       Mrs. Wrenn said she sympathizes with irate taxpayers who 
     have supported her for years.
       ``They're working and we're not. They're working to pay for 
     people,'' she said. ``I did the same thing. Some people do 
     need the help.''
       Without a job, there is no question Mrs. Wrenn needs the 
     help.
       She raises five children, ages 2 to 12 years old, in a 
     third-floor apartment at the crest of Prospect Hill. She has 
     lived there for 14 years. Three of those children are her 
     grandchildren.
       She took custody of them last year after her eldest 
     daughter, who was also on welfare, was convicted of 
     prostitution then disappeared from a court-ordered drug 
     clinic.
       Mrs. Wrenn said she had learned her eldest daughter was 
     using the children's welfare benefits to buy drugs. Her 
     daughter is now serving a jail term at Framingham state 
     prison, she said.
       Two-year-old Alicia, who calls her grandmother ``Mommy,'' 
     has not seen her mother for any extended period of time since 
     shortly after she was born.
       Mrs. Wrenn has not given much thought to the idea of 
     welfare dependency. But she said she hopes her other children 
     and grandchildren do not end up on welfare.
       She blames drugs for causing her eldest daughter to turn to 
     welfare. ``At that time I felt it was the only thing she 
     could do,'' Mrs. Wrenn said. ``I couldn't keep her in the 
     house.''


                    ``bored with school so i left''

       Unlike Mrs. Wrenn, Rosemary Ortiz spent the first 10 years 
     of her life in a family supported by welfare benefits. The 
     youngest of six children, Ms. Ortiz said her father left home 
     when she was an infant. She has not seen him since.
       Her mother still lives in Lawrence and went back to work 
     after her children were old enough to take care of 
     themselves.
       Ms. Ortiz was a senior at Greater Lawrence Technical School 
     in 1984 when she became pregnant, dropped out and began 
     receiving AFDC and Food Stamps.
       ``I was bored with school so I left,'' she said.
       The father was a married man who promised to leave his 
     wife.
       ``He even bought me an engagement ring,'' she said. ``I was 
     naive.''
       When the father of her first child left, Ms. Ortiz became 
     involved with his friend. She had three children by the 
     second man in the past nine years. He has agreed to pay $50 a 
     week in child support.
       Ms. Ortiz went back to school during the evening and 
     recently obtained a high school equivalency degree which, 
     along with her children's baptismal certificates, she 
     displays on her walls.
       Her three-bedroom apartment is also decorated with large 
     color photographs of her children, Head Start diplomas and 
     other records of their achievements.
       A television tuned into Sesame Street keeps her youngest 
     children--ages 2 and 3--busy enough for her to finish one of 
     the many loads of laundry she does in a day.
       ``If they were to cut my AFDC benefits off, I will 
     survive,'' Ms. Ortiz said. ``I read English. I speak two 
     languages. I've worked before. I am not afraid to go to 
     work.''
       But she doesn't work, she said, because she fears losing 
     health care benefits and food stamps for herself and her four 
     children.
       ``It doesn't pay to work,'' Ms. Ortiz said.
       Both Mrs. Wrenn and Ms. Ortiz said Gov. William F. Weld and 
     President Bill Clinton should aggressively pursue welfare 
     fraud before attacking their benefits, or setting a two-year 
     limit on receiving public assistance.
       ``There are people out there who need it and yet there are 
     others who don't and are on it,'' Mrs. Wrenn said. ``They're 
     the ones who are ruining the welfare system.''
       Ms. Ortiz agreed.
       ``Many years ago, there was no way to cheat welfare. Now 
     it's a piece of cake,'' she said. ``The system is hard on 
     people who need it and easy on people who don't.''

                              {time}  1910

  That article demonstrates what two single parents are trying to do, 
trying to get off the welfare system, but finding that it does not have 
the incentives, it does not reward work. It makes it more difficult to 
take a job in the private sector and much easier to continue to stay on 
welfare.
  The second article I would like to read tonight deals with a very, 
very different part of the welfare system. It deals with individuals 
who are in prison, convicted of crimes, and yet are still receiving 
benefits. It is entitled ``State Looks Other Way as Convicts Get 
Welfare: Prison Convicts Get Welfare Behind Bars.''

       Heroin and welfare.
       For a while, they were Ivan Lebron's bread and butter.
       Mr. Lebron sold heroin on the streets of Lawrence, 
     contributing his bit to the decline of a city.
       He was arrested three times on heroin charges before he was 
     sent away to jail.
       But he went back to work selling heroin after he got out, 
     police say.
       For part of the time he was a heroin dealer, he had the 
     support of the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare. He 
     got a monthly check, plus food vouchers, full insurance 
     benefits and a cover for his activities. He was supposed to 
     be disabled.
       John Clough also had taxpayer support for his life of 
     crime.
       By his own admission, he was on welfare because he was too 
     addled by drugs and alcohol to hold a job.
       But he was fit enough to break into houses and attack and 
     rob an 83-year-old man.
       Mr. Clough continued to collect his welfare benefits even 
     while behind bars, which is against the law.
       Mr. Clough remains locked up. Mr. Lebron is on the run from 
     another heroin charge. Benefits have ended for both. But 
     there are others like them, perhaps hundreds.
       An Eagle-Tribune investigation found:
       Almost 300 criminals who did time in the county jail in 
     1991 and 1992 were already collecting some form of public 
     assistance out of the Lawrence welfare office when arrested. 
     These included drug dealers, burglars, armed robbers, drunk 
     drivers and child molesters.
       More than 50 of the convicts on the Lawrence welfare rolls 
     continued to receive benefits in jail. More than 30 actually 
     served full terms with no changes in their benefits.
       State welfare officials have ignored a 3-year-old study 
     recommending computer matches to catch prisoners on welfare.
       The state provides benefits to people who claim 
     disabilities resulting from drug or alcohol abuse but it does 
     not require them to get help for their addiction.
       The investigation included a computerized examination of 
     thousands of criminal records and other public documents, as 
     well as interviews with law enforcement officials and 
     criminals.
       Lawrence officials have publicly claimed for years that 
     drug dealers and users and other criminals have taken 
     advantage of lax rules to get themselves on the welfare 
     rolls.
       With no need to work and plenty of time on their hands, 
     they have wreaked havoc on the city.
       Mayor Kevin Sullivan at one point ordered police to 
     confiscate welfare identification cards whenever they came 
     across them during a drug raid. Dozens were seized before a 
     court ordered the city to stop because the practice was 
     unconstitutional.
       Nothing has been done to stop the welfare department from 
     subsidizing drug dealers.
       Welfare officials do not check criminal records before or 
     after putting someone on welfare.
       Mr. Sullivan, now an official in the state Transportation 
     Department, said he started seizing welfare cards because 
     drug dealers were ruining the city and ``we were paying them 
     to do it. We were subsidizing a drug culture.''
       ``These were mostly young males who were alleging they were 
     disabled.. . . The government was paying them to stand on 
     street corners and deal drugs.''
       Essex County Sheriff Charles Reardon said he and his staff 
     also believe welfare helps fuel the underground economy of 
     criminals.
       Criminals are already on welfare when they arrive in jail 
     and many continue to collect even behind bars, he has found.
       For four years, he has attempted to have state welfare 
     officials address the issue. They have done nothing.


                         on heroin, on welfare

       Ivan Lebron and John Clough are examples of what Mr. 
     Sullivan and Sheriff Reardon are talking about.
       Mr. Lebron, 32, a former resident of Oxford Street in 
     Lawrence, was arrested on heroin dealing charges on May 16, 
     1990. He was arrested twice more for heroin while awaiting 
     trial.
       His fourth arrest, on June 25, 1991, was for assaulting a 
     police officer. This time he was sent away for a year to the 
     Essex County jail in Middleton.
       Mr. Lebron joined the welfare rolls in March 1991, in 
     between heroin arrests. A doctor's note saying he was 
     disabled entitled him to $339 a month in General Relief 
     benefits, plus food stamps.
       Mr. Lebron's benefits stopped two weeks after he went to 
     jail, as they were supposed to.
       A month later, he was moved to the minimum-security 
     Correctional Alternatives Center in Lawrence.
       Despite his claim of being too disabled to work when he 
     signed up for General Relief, Mr. Lebron enrolled in a work-
     release program at the CAC.
       Records show Mr. Lebron worked at the Ogden Martin trash 
     plant in Haverhill from October to December 1991. His job: 
     shoveling trash into the incinerator. He made $6 an hour and 
     worked from 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., five days a week.
       He had $1,106 in his prison bank account when he was 
     released on Dec. 5, 1991.
       In January 1992, he was sent back to jail for a month on a 
     parole violation.
       He went back on General Relief in April 1992.
       While collecting, he was arrested for trespassing at a 
     public housing project where he had been known to sell drugs.
       His welfare benefits stopped in September 1992 when his 
     eligibility ran out.
       Three months later, State Police arrested Mr. Lebron and 
     two other men and charged them with running a major heroin 
     ring out of the Merrimack Courts housing project.
       Police said addicts would page Mr. Lebron on his beeper, 
     punch in the number of bags of heroin they wanted and Mr. 
     Lebron would meet them at the housing project.
       Police with drug-sniffing dogs found five bags of heroin on 
     Mr. Lebron, 45 bags inside a TV in the apartment where he was 
     staying and 180 bags in the heating system of his partners' 
     car.
       Despite his record, Mr. Lebron was allowed to post bail and 
     walk away. He did not look back.


                       disability not an obstacle

       John Clough has done time for a string of crimes, including 
     several burglaries, robbery and assault and battery.
       Mr. Clough, 35, formerly of Haverhill Street, Lawrence, 
     started collecting General Relief in October 1990. He 
     switched to Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, the 
     following July.
       While on welfare he was arrested twice for breaking into 
     houses. Police say he also robbed an 83-year-old Lawrence man 
     a few blocks from the welfare office.
       According to the police report, Mr. Clough and an 
     accomplice confronted the old man and demanded money. They 
     knocked him down when he showed an empty wallet.
       Mr. Clough snatched a bag containing some personal papers 
     and bolted. He was arrested three blocks away and jailed.
       He was later sentenced to four years in Walpole state 
     prison. The charge of robbing the old man was filed. Mr. 
     Clough has since been transferred to the medium security 
     prison in Shirley.
       SSI benefits are supposed to stop while the recipient is in 
     jail. But Mr. Clough's continued until at least September 
     1992, a full year after he had been locked up.
       In a phone interview from prison, Mr. Clough said his 
     checks were sent to his home and cashed by the mother of his 
     child. ``Without the money, she would have been out on the 
     street,'' he said.
       Mr. Clough said he was on SSI for a disability. ``I'm 
     chemically disimpaired,'' he said. ``I use drugs and alcohol. 
     I can't read or write, too.''
       Welfare officials confirm people who are disabled as the 
     result of drug or alcohol abuse can collect benefits. And 
     there is no requirement that an addict or alcoholic get 
     treatment or job training to continue to receive benefits.
       ``There are still a substantial number of EAEDC recipients 
     who are addicts of one form or another,'' said Mary Claire 
     Kennedy, director of the Lawrence welfare office.
       Emergency Aid for Elderly, Disabled and Children, or EAEDC, 
     is the program that replaced General Relief when GR was 
     eliminated because of suspected abuse by drug addicts and 
     criminals.
       Meanwhile, Mr. Clough has filed a $100,000 lawsuit against 
     Lawrence police from jail. He claims officers entered his 
     home without a warrant, beat him and denied him medical 
     attention. He acted as his own lawyer, court records show.


                        ex-convicts can collect

       Until recently, Massachusetts convicts were automatically 
     entitled to collect General Relief welfare for 60 days after 
     being released from jail.
       Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Massachusetts 
     Human Services Coalition, said that may have been unpopular 
     but it reduced crime.
       ``If you remember the old gangster movies they'd hand them 
     $50 and a new suit when they left prison. I guess we've 
     progressed to giving $600 to ex-cons,'' Ms. Weinstein said.
       She said convenience store owners who might be targets of 
     holdups ``are thankful these people have some source of 
     income when they come out. Using this to tide them over is a 
     good investment.''
       But The Eagle-Tribune found many criminals do not use 
     welfare just to tide them over after being released. They are 
     on welfare before going to jail, and they can continue to 
     collect indefinitely by claiming a medical disability.
       One welfare fraud investigator told The Eagle-Tribune 
     disability certificates are easy to forge and never checked 
     by welfare workers because there are so many.
       A computer match of jail and welfare records by The Eagle-
     Tribune found 305 prisoners who spent time in the Essex 
     County House of Corrections between 1991 and 1992 had also 
     received some form of welfare benefits through the Lawrence 
     office during those two years. Of the 305, 296 were on 
     welfare before they were incarcerated.
       Cross-checking found at least 54 inmates whose welfare 
     cases remained open even after they were jailed.
       In 17 cases, as in Mr. Lebron's, their benefits stopped 
     after they were locked up. But 37 other inmates, including 
     Mr. Clough, served their entire sentences without losing 
     benefits.
       Those estimates are on the conservative side as they 
     account only for inmates who received benefits through the 
     Lawrence welfare office, one of 48 across the state.
       The sheriff's department has seized public assistance 
     checks sent to inmates collecting out of the Salem, 
     Newburyport, Haverhill and Lynn welfare offices.
       The Eagle-Tribune also found at least two felons who 
     received welfare while in state prisons. One served a year 
     without losing benefits.


                       checks in the jail's mail

       The Eagle-Tribune first reported that prisoners were 
     illegally collecting public assistance in 1989, after Sheriff 
     Reardon confiscated a handful of welfare checks found during 
     routine searches of prisoners' mail for contraband.
       One burglar on General Relief told a reporter that 
     ``scamming'' the state was common among his friends.
       Two years ago, Gov. William F. Weld cut off illegal aliens, 
     ex-convicts and drug addicts from the General Relief rolls.
       The state replaced the program with EAEDC. The Weld 
     administration also required all participants to undergo an 
     outside medical examination.
       Thousands of recipients were knocked off the welfare rolls 
     and spending on the program was cut in half from more than 
     $200 million to less than $100 million.
       But Merrimack Valley Legal Services filed suit and won a 
     ruling that the new medical standards were ``inherently 
     unfair, unjust and inequitable.''
       As a result, thousands of welfare recipients will be 
     reinstated.
       After The Eagle-Tribune expose four years ago, state 
     officials maintained only a ``very small'' number of 
     prisoners were collecting welfare. Then-welfare commissioner 
     Charles Atkins publicly said the state would start performing 
     computer matches of welfare and jail records to root out 
     those who were.
       Sheriff Reardon, who continues to confiscate welfare checks 
     sent to the jail, said the matches were never done.
       ``I have never heard from them nor has any of my staff 
     heard from them,'' he said.
       Computer matches were also recommended by a legislative 
     committee that studied the issue of convicts collecting 
     welfare after The Eagle-Tribune story.
       As part of the 1989 study, state auditors performed a 
     sample match of welfare rolls against Essex County jail 
     rosters.
       Social Security numbers of 364 inmates were checked. Forty-
     nine, or 13 percent, were found to be on the master file at 
     the welfare department, indicating they were on welfare at 
     some point.
       The study said 10, or about 3 percent, were fraudulently 
     receiving benefits behind bars. They were removed from the 
     welfare rolls. The study recommended continued computer 
     matches that would act as a deterrent and save as much as 
     $1 million each year.
       The current welfare commissioner, Joseph V. Gallant, said 
     his department looked into conducting computer matches with 
     prisons and jails but dropped the idea because there is not 
     central registry of inmates. He also said he believed the 
     cross-checks would find only a handful of inmates on welfare.
       ``You have to weigh what it costs to do the matches to get 
     one or two people,'' Mr. Gallant said.
       ``They know how many we caught,'' Sheriff Reardon said. 
     ``It's far greater than two or three.''
       Based on the number of welfare checks confiscated at the 
     jail, he estimates close to 30 percent of the entire jail 
     population is on some form of welfare.
       ``They get enough from the public as it is from the jails. 
     And to have them collecting welfare on top of that is too 
     much,'' the sheriff said.
       Sheriff Reardon said most inmates know the rules barring 
     them from collecting welfare while doing time.
       ``They know once they come to the jail the check will be 
     taken away from them,'' Sheriff Reardon said. ``So they send 
     it to a post office box, another address. Of course, they 
     aren't going to turn themselves in.''

  Madam Speaker, to recap, the articles I've read tonight outline how 
welfare has sadly become a way of life for many, both those who want to 
get off the system, as well as those who callously abuse it. Also, they 
point out how, despite the law, some felons have still collected SSI 
benefits.
  Tomorrow, I will outline how those convicted of misdemeanors still 
collect SSI, how fraud often goes unpunished, and how many have cheated 
the system and the taxpayers.

                          ____________________