Utah's Department of Workforce Services is considering upping from 30 to 34 the number of hours per week that single-parent families on welfare must work to receive benefits, even as it more narrowly defines what qualifies as "work."
Sarah Brenna, manager of Utah's Family Employment Program, says the 34-hour threshold and narrower definitions of work reflect the least restrictive of two similar proposals before Congress.
Currently, "work" includes paid employment, job searches, community service and some job training and education. A single mother of two, for example, could meet her work requirement by working toward a high school diploma.
But the proposed rule change emphasizes clock punching over education, limiting high school diploma work to 10 hours - and the chance for a parent to better his or her income, say advocates for the poor.
The path to earning more money is through education, says Bill Tibbits of Crossroads Urban Center, operator of the state's largest food pantry. "It is unrealistic to expect a single parent to continue going to school if they are spending 34 hours a week doing other things in order to get their welfare benefits."
Of the 9,500 Utahns on welfare, the new rules would affect at most 6,300, said Brenna, stressing some people will still qualify for exemptions.
But Dee Rowland, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, questions the wisdom of second-guessing Congress.
It seems an "inefficient" use of staff time to write guidelines today that may change tomorrow, said Rowland, who is among those lobbying the federal government to expand educational opportunities for welfare families.
About 42 percent of Utahns who move off welfare do not have a high school diploma and another 19 percent are illiterate, said Rowland. "Those statistics seem to warrant an increase in the time allowed for obtaining a GED or high school degree."
Utah's welfare rules are already among the country's most conservative. Federal law allows families to draw on welfare for 60 months, whereas Utah adopted a 36-month lifetime limit.
