Gov. Scott Walker unveiled his workforce development and entitlement reforms in 2013, saying that he wanted low-income Wisconsinites to reduce their dependence on government programs. The state’s 2013-2015 biennial budget included $33 million for job training for those who receive Food Share benefits.
But new data show that the $33 million investment isn’t paying off for those in the Food Share program.
Under the new Food Share Employment and Training (FSET) program rules, if a childless, able-bodied Food Share recipient between the ages of 18 and 49 doesn’t work or attend job-training programs for 80 hours a month, he or she will get kicked off of Food Share after three months. The state began contracting with agencies, including for-profit companies, to provide the job-training programs.
But two years after Walker launched his reforms, new numbers released by the state Department of Health Services (DHS) show that Walker’s plan to require Food Share recipients to work for those benefits isn’t leading to brighter job prospects for these impoverished individuals. The Wisconsin State Journal requested the data, which DHS subsequently posted on its website.
Instead of helping the jobless find work, Walker’s reforms have led to kicking almost 15,000 people off of Food Share since April, when the new time limits kicked in for 60,000 Wisconsinites. More than half of those who lost their Food Share benefits this year—8,147—live in Milwaukee County.
Yet far fewer people have found work through the new FSET program. According to DHS data, just 4,513 FSET participants statewide have found a job since April. That includes 2,242 Milwaukee County residents, about a quarter of the more than 8,000 Milwaukeeans who lost their Food Share benefits.
‘There Are No New Jobs’
State Rep. Mandela Barnes (D-Milwaukee) called for a halt in Food Share’s time limits, saying they would cause a hunger crisis in the city just before the holidays. DHS could do so by requesting a waiver from the federal government.
“In requesting the waiver, we are asking Gov. Walker to halt all of the displacements of people receiving Food Share because when the employment prospects have not changed for the better, as they have not in Milwaukee County, there is a federal waiver that is available,” Barnes told the Shepherd. “We are requesting that waiver because there are no new jobs.”
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Barnes pointed to DHS’ data showing that 28,882 Milwaukee County residents were referred to the FSET program, and just 7%—or 2,242 people—obtained jobs.
In 2014, the Kentucky-based ResCare Workforce Services won the state contract for providing FSET programming in Milwaukee County. It won a separate contract to provide those services in Ozaukee, Waukesha and Washington counties. In October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified DHS that ResCare’s Milwaukee office practices could violate FSET program participants’ civil rights. ResCare’s Milwaukee office couldn’t be reached for comment.
DHS spokeswoman Claire Yunker emailed the Shepherd that it’s too soon for the department to request a waiver.
“As this was a provision that was enacted by legislation (the 2013-2015 biennial budget), the department would need to be directed by further legislation to seek a waiver to this budget initiative that was enacted by the Legislature and the governor,” she wrote.
Rep. Barnes sees a cruel double standard when it comes to state government programs that give out taxpayer dollars. He said the new Food Share regulations, along with Walker’s plan to drug test some Food Share recipients—a plan that’s tied up in federal court—and new Assembly proposals allegedly aimed at rooting out fraud in social safety net programs unfairly punish the poor while well-connected corporations have easy access to tax credits and other perks through the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), Walker’s deeply troubled jobs agency. He wasn’t hopeful that the Republican-controlled Assembly would try to improve the FSET program.
“They’ve gone so far in the demagoguery of poor people or anybody receiving public assistance—not including the people who receive the higher-dollar benefits, the fraudulent WEDC loan recipients,” Barnes said. “That’s where so much money is literally being wasted, literally being lost. That’s where the fraud is.”
