Table Of ContentThis is a volume in the
Institute for Research on Poverty Monograph Series
A complete list of titles in this series appears at the end of this volume.
LAST RESORTS
Emergency Assistance and
Special Needs Programs in Public Welfare
JOEL F. HANDLER
University of Wisconsin Law School
and Institute for Research on Poverty
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
MICHAEL SOSIN
Department of Social Work
and Institute for Research on Poverty
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
ACADEMIC PRESS
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This book is one of a series sponsored by the Institute for Research on Poverty
of the University of Wisconsin pursuant to the provisions of the Economic
Opportunity Act of 1964.
Copyright © 1983 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
on behalf of the Institute for Research on Poverty
All Rights Reserved
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Handler, Joel F.
Last resorts.
(Institute for Research on Poverty monograph
series)
1. Public welfare-Government policy-United
States. 2. Supplemental security income program
-United States. 3. Assistance in emergencies-
United States. I. Sosin, Michael. II. Title.
III. Series.
HV95.H258 1983 361.6 83-6034
ISBN 0-12-322950-2
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
83 84 85 86 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Stephen, Adam, and Frances Handler
j. H.
To my parents
M. S.
The Institute for Research on Poverty is a national center for re-
ES59
search established at the University of Wisconsin in 1966 by a grant
Wmr from the Office of Economic Opportunity. Its primary objective is to
I foster basic, multidisciplinary research into the nature and causes of
poverty and means to combat it.
In addition to increasing the basic knowledge from which policies aimed at
the elimination of poverty can be shaped, the Institute strives to carry
analysis beyond the formulation and testing of fundamental generalizations
to the development and assessment of relevant policy alternatives.
The Institute endeavors to bring together scholars of the highest caliber
whose primary research efforts are focused on the problem of poverty, the
distribution of income, and the analysis and evaluation of social policy,
offering staff members wide opportunities for interchange of ideas, maximum
freedom for research into basic questions about poverty and social policy,
and dissemination of their findings.
List of Tables
1.1 Six-Cell Stratified Sample of the 50 States 21
2.1 Special Needs Items Not Covered or Covered Minimally 29
2.2 Goals Listed on Executive Questionnaires and What They
Measure 47
2.3 Welfare System Goals as Rated by State Welfare Executives 49
2.4 Welfare System Goals as Rated by County Welfare Executives 51
2.5 State Welfare Executives' Perceptions of Attitudes of Various Groups
toward Specialized Programs 54
2.6 Local Executives' Perceptions of Attitudes of Various Groups toward
Specialized Programs 56
3.1 Emergency Assistance and Special Needs Programs Provided by
States 60
3.2 AFDC and AFDC-EA Caseload and Expenditures in One Year 63
3.3 General Assistance Data, February 1978 82
4.1 Correlation between AFDC Characteristics and Specialized
Assistance 104
4.2 Correlation between Selected Goals and Specialized Assistance 107
4.3 Correlation between Selected Measures of Community Pressure and
Specialized Assistance 111
5.1 State Mandates Concerning Informing Basic Grant Recipients about
Emergency Assistance and Special Needs 121
5.2 State Requirements Concerning Exhausting Outside Resources before
Receiving Assistance 122
XIII
XIV List of Tables
5.3 State Requirements Concerning Verification of Applications 123
5.4 Coverage of Various Groups by State Specialized Programs 124
5.5 Items Constituting 81-100% of the Costs of State Specialized
Programs 126
5.6 Circumstances Covered at Least in Part by State Specialized
Programs 127
5.7 Forms of Specialized Aid Permitted in State Programs 129
5.8 Conditions of Specialized Aid Imposed by State Programs 130
5.9 Correlations of State Administrative Characteristics and Selected
Measures of Emergency and Special Needs Program Size 134
5.10 Correlations of Measures of Public Welfare Policy and Administrative
Characteristics in State Specialized Programs 139
6.1 County Rules and Procedures Concerning Informing Potential
Recipients about Emergency Assistance and Special Needs 150
6.2 County Requirements Concerning Exhausting Outside Resources before
Receiving Assistance 151
6.3 Items Usually Verified by County Programs 152
6.4 Coverage of Various Groups by Local Specialized Programs 153
6.5 Items Constituting 81-100% of the Costs of Local Specialized
Programs 154
6.6 Circumstances Covered at Least in Part by County Specialized
Programs 155
6.7 Forms of Specialized Aid Permitted in County Programs 155
6.8 Conditions of Specialized Aid Imposed by County Programs 156
6.9 Regression Model of County Program Costs Compared to AFDC
Costs 161
6.10 Regression Model of Local Acceptance Rate of Applicants for
Specialized Programs 163
7.1 Frequency of Various Types of Worker Behavior in Emergency
Assistance Programs 171
7.2 Characteristics of State-County Communication 173
7.3 State Executives' Perceptions of Administrative Problems 174
7.4 County Executives' Perceptions of Administrative Problems 174
7.5 Designation by County Authorities of Problems with State Rules and
Guidelines 175
7.6 Responses of State and County Administrators Concerning Adequacy of
Specialized Assistance Coverage 177
7.7 Responses of State and Local Administrators Concerning Appropriate
Coverage of Various Circumstances by Specialized Programs 179
7.8 County Administrative Response to Increased Demand for Specialized
Assistance 184
8.1 Responses of Local Program Administrators Concerning Perceived
Availability of Community Resources 192
8.2 Beliefs of Local Executives Concerning Action Taken in Absence of
Public Specialized Aid Programs 194
List of Tables XV
8.3 Responses of Local Program Administrators Concerning Private Sources
of Specialized Aid 195
8.4 Responses of Local Program Administrators Concerning Types of
Clients Likely to Receive Specialized Aid from Private Sources 196
9.1 Supplementary Benefits: Composition of the Rolls, 1978 219
Foreword
Across the broad front of governmental action, from the conduct of
monetary policy to the administration of welfare benefits, the choice
between uniform rules impersonally administered and individualized
responses at an administrator's discretion is being debated yet again.
Uniformity is in the ascendancy, at least rhetorically.
This book examines how the welfare system now deals with
emergencies and special needs in the U.S. system, which is vastly
complicated by state and county administration, and where each juris-
diction's pursuit of uniformity results in enormous system-wide
variability.
Niggardliness further presses each administrator to limit the focus of
his or her beneficence to those few problems most urgent or most con-
sistent with local mores. Variability is thereby further increased. Most
of all, there is wide discretion because the life of welfare clients re-
mains wildly unpredictable.
Handler is a lawyer, Sosin a social worker. Both have long and strong
backgrounds in research on discretion, organizational processes, and
client services. Yet, what they see outrages them.
No one state claims to have all of the existing emergency assistance or
special needs programs, but looking at the states as a whole, we find an
impressive number of programs. These, however, are programs on the books.
XVII
XVIII Foreword
Within the limitations of the data, our general finding is that these programs
are, in fact, small, variable, and discretionary in administration. Like weeds
searching for cracks in a straight and unyielding concrete road, these programs
struggle for existence against the dominant ideology of routinization and re-
duction of cost, error, and fraud. Overall the many fragmentary provisions for
emergency assistance and special needs give little aid to clients, leave large
gaps in coverage, and possess great heterogeneity. The budgets are extremely
small when compared to the amounts states spend on their regular income
maintenance programs. Thus AFDC-EA, one of the most important spe-
cialized programs, exists in less than half of the states, and the average expen-
diture for AFDC—Ε A in those states is only 1.5% of the average AFDC expendi-
ture. Minnesota, one of the most generous states, spends about 3% of its
welfare budget on specialized aid. Not many weeds are poking through |pp.
238-239].
Improvement must come from a change in attitudes. According to
Handler and Sosin, "Individualized treatment in public welfare is not a
necessary evil, but a necessary good, and part of the evaluation of any
public welfare system must depend upon its willingness and ability to
meet those needs that cannot be covered by the standardized grant [p.
12]." Perhaps that turnabout will be initiated by this book.
EUGENE SMOLENSKY
Director
institute for Research on Poverty
