An article in the New York Times stated, "The economic boom that changed the face of New York City in the 1990s appears to have had no impact on the median income of families in the city's poorest borough, according to the results of an experimental Census Bureau survey of Bronx households" released August 16.

The survey conducted on households of working people in the city verified what workers already know: that income levels for tens of thousands of families declined over the past decade. Many are one paycheck from being homeless or facing some other economic disaster.

"In New York, the number of families in poverty is soaring alongside the number of homeless," said the Financial Times in an article about Floating Hospital. The hospital was started 130 years ago as a charity for the city's poor and is still in high demand, treating some 15,000 people each year in 80 clinics throughout the city. Referring to homelessness, the article said that New York "is approaching the historical high set in March 1987 and could surpass it soon," noting that at the end of July some 28,650 people were sleeping in city shelters on any given night--a 21 percent increase compared with last year.

According to a study released by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute in late July, nearly one-third of working-class families with children under 12--many with incomes above the official poverty line--have experienced "critical hardship, such as missing meals, being evicted from their housing, having their utilities disconnected, doubling up on housing, or not having access to needed medical care."

The report states that 4 million working-class families barely have enough income to meet basic monthly expenses such as meals, rent, utilities, transportation, and other household needs, and that twice as many U.S. citizens are struggling to make ends meet than are defined as living below the official poverty line.  
 
Welfare deadline: disaster for millions
Meanwhile, the time clock for the federal government's five-year lifetime limit on receiving welfare is fast approaching for tens of thousands of families across the country. So far, under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act signed by William Clinton, nearly 50 percent of welfare recipients have been driven off rolls between 1993 and 1998. This act eliminated the federally funded entitlement Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

Of the 38,800 families in the city of New York whose time limit kicks in at the end of December, about 32 percent of them have at least one parent employed in a low-wage job. Another 22 percent are classified by government officials as "noncooperative," and the rest are forced into workfare programs, "job training," or judged by welfare authorities as temporarily ill, disabled, or elderly.

Those who reach the five-year limit would have to apply for the Safety Net Assistance program, which is not expected to be in place until at least the spring of 2002. Some people may be exempted from the time limit based on an undefined "hardship" category, which is restricted to no more than 20 percent of the declining welfare rolls.

"Welfare tells you, 'We're going to give you transitional benefits,' but then what they are doing is just cutting you off," said Regla Belette, a working mother of three children. She explained to the New York Times that her apartment burned down last year, and her family was once cut off from food stamps and a rent subsidy when she took some time to care for her sick father in Florida.

Belette and her husband, who makes about $6.00 an hour with no benefits in a Brooklyn warehouse, were recently cut off from receiving cash grants because city officials claimed they earned too much to qualify. "Honestly, I don't know what people are going to do if they are not supposed to get help from the government," she added.

The administration of New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani has been pressing a campaign to push people off welfare even before they reach the time limit. Cutoff letters sent to thousands of people include those participating in workfare programs.

One group of people in New York who are receiving welfare benefits organized a protest rally in front of the state Supreme Court August 15 to demand the mayor implement a law that would create job positions for those with low incomes. They presented their demand in the name of seven welfare recipients who said they would have benefited from the program, which would have created 2,500 jobs by January of this year. The law, approved by the city council last year, would establish a total of 7,500 job positions by 2004 that include training and benefits for people on public assistance to help them enter the workforce.  
 
 
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