As the recession lingers, more Syracuse residents are falling into the social safety net.
“Since I’ve been around, I haven’t seen increases in requests for benefits of this magnitude,” said Steven Morgan, deputy commissioner of Onondaga County’s social services department. He’s been with the department for 11 years. And until last year, he had seen a steady decline in requests for public benefits.
In January, the unemployment rate for the Syracuse metropolitan area 9.1 percent, reports the state’s department of labor. That’s the highest rate since 1990, when the state adopted a new method for calculating the jobless rate.
The unexpected growth of unemployment has placed strains on the county’s budget and local non-profit organizations as more people look to government and private charities for help, say officials with the county and with non-profit organizations.
In the last year, the county has seen sharp increases in applications for the major public aid programs. Those programs are Food Stamps, Medicaid, Family Assistance and Safety Net. Consider these numbers for the last year:
- Food Stamps, officially known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: up 22 percent. That’s 25,000 families, in addition to those on welfare, getting help buying food. To qualify for Food Stamps, a family of three must make no more than $1,526 a month.
- Medicaid, the tax-supported health insurance program for the poor and disabled: up 12 percent. That’s 48,000 beneficiaries in Onondaga County. To be financially eligible, a family of three cannot have an income of more than $1,050 a month.
- Family Assistance, officially known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: up almost 20 percent. That’s 3,100 families. Family Assistance is a federally mandated cash-assistance program. It aids poor families with children for up to five years. To be eligible, a family of three must make no more than $664 a month.
- Safety Net, the state’s welfare program: up 26 percent. That’s 2,400 Safety Net cases. New York state’s Safety Net program covers singles, childless couples and families that have used up their time on Family Assistance. Safety Net has no time limit.
The federal government pays for Food Stamps. But the county covers 25 percent of the Medicaid expenditure. New York is one of the only states that require counties to pay for part of the local Medicaid bill, said Morgan, the deputy commissioner at the department of social services.
Morgan says the county also covers half of Safety Net costs and a quarter of Family Assistance expenses. The county got almost $28 million from the federal stimulus package in 2009 to help pay for Medicaid, he said.
“The stimulus has been a revenue shot-in-the-arm to help the county get towards its goal of balancing the budget,” Morgan said.
Morgan says the county budgeted more for social service programs in 2010 than in 2009. For 2009, the county planned to spend $111.5 million on Medicaid, Family Assistance and Safety Net, reports the county’s budget.
“We didn’t expect the recession to be as deep as it was,” said Morgan. “We’ve definitely budgeted more for 2010 than for 2009.”
For 2010, the county budgeted $113.9 million for Medicaid and welfare programs. That’s a $2.4 million increase for public benefits.
In addition to government social services, private charities are seeing more need for their help.
At P.E.A.C.E. Inc., workers notice a growing demand for food, housing and other services. P.E.A.C.E. is a non-profit organization that aims to help people in poverty become independent, reports the organization’s Web site.
Jessica Deer works with energy and housing services at P.E.A.C.E. Inc. That part of the organization repairs furnaces, insulation, windows and doors to protect low-income families from bad weather. In the last six months, she’s seen an 80 percent growth in these services, she said.
“I think the increase is because oil and gas prices have gone up and that National Grid bill doesn’t help either,” Deer said. “People who are trying to feed their families need help with those maintenance expenses.”
At the Salvation Army, Maj. Kevin Schoch manages the organization’s 10 local thrift stores that sell donated clothing and household goods. More people began to shop at the thrift stores last year, Schoch said.
“A year ago fall, we did see a lot of new faces at the time when the economic crisis was getting a great deal of exposure,” Schoch said. “There are those in the economy who have obviously lost their jobs and they have been hit by this.”
At its thrift stores, the Salvation Army employs 196 people for jobs ranging from sales staff to truck drivers who transport donations, Schoch said. So far, the recession has not forced him to cut his staff, he said.
Schoch expresses hope for new jobs to end the recession. “Employment,” he said, “is how the economy needs to recover.”
(Valerie Crowder is a junior with triple majors in broadcast journalism, political science and international relations.)
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