The state already knows that about one-third of adults who receive some form of public aid grew up in families that also received government assistance.

Now, a bill would authorize the Department of Workforce Services to assemble other data about those people in order to track trends in intergenerational poverty and identify “at-risk children and other groups” who need yet unspecified interventions to keep them off the public dole — an idea getting mixed reviews from advocates who work with poor Utahns.

Under SB37, the department would collate existing data, according to sponsor Sen. Stuart Reid, R-Ogden, that would be used to help caseworkers, social-science researchers and government officials develop programs to short-circuit intergenerational poverty, which is defined as two or more successive generations of a family living in poverty.

“What we tend to do is treat them the same way we treat those who are in situational poverty” because of events such as a divorce or a job loss, Reid said Tuesday during a Senate Workforce Services committee hearing. “I don’t want to be a party to yet another generation of children being victimized by the system because we are treating our interventions as if they were situations.”

The bill, which the committee unanimously approved, merely authorizes data collection, but Reid said he expects it to yield information that will be the basis of future legislation focused on children and ways to “rescue” them from poverty.

During an interim committee hearing on the issue this fall, Reid said welfare programs often trap people in poverty so that they “learn a lifestyle that becomes acceptable to them and do not move out of poverty.”

According to Kristen Cox, executive director of the Department of Workforce Services, a review of adults ages 21 to 39 who currently receive assistance found 34 percent grew up in families who received assistance. Among those, 47 percent of adults receiving cash support through the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program came from families who got the same help. That was true for 37 percent of those receiving food stamps and 19 percent participating in medical programs.

In 2010, the state’s poverty rate was 13.2 percent, and about 15.7 percent for children. That translates to an estimated 135,565 children in Utah living in poverty, though there are wide variations across the state. For example, in San Juan and Piute counties, approximately 30 percent of children are living in poverty. In Washington County, nearly 21 percent of children live in poverty.

The federal poverty guideline, used to calculate eligibility for aid programs, is an income of $14,710 for a two-person household. An adult who works a full-time, minimum-wage job earns $15,080 a year, but many minimum wage jobs are part-time. One indicator of that phenomenon in Utah: In 2010, nearly 49 percent of those who received food stamps were working in some capacity.

Utah already has a three-year lifetime limit on TANF benefits — something Linda Hilton, resource coordinator at Crossroads Urban Center, pointed out.

“I don’t think we need more reports telling us why children are living in poverty,” Hilton told the committee. “Come spend a day at Crossroads Urban Center and see.”

Hilton then criticized the Legislature for adding to the problem by not adequately funding counseling, health care, affordable housing and other programs aimed at helping people escape poverty.

“A lot of it comes back on all of you funding all the programs that are already there and needed,” she said. “We know the cycle; we know what needs to happen.”

Karen Silver, an advocate with the Salt Lake Community Action Program, said she feared the bill might lead to more requirements on parents who are already struggling to work and make their lives better. She said the single best way to help people get out of poverty is to support access to education.

“I haven’t met one person who is involved in [a work] program who says this is a great lifestyle,” she said. “They want to get out as soon as they can.”

But that drew a challenge from Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, who said some people do seem “content with that.”