Quick facts from the Missouri Department of Social Services Monthly Management Report for January 2018 [ https://dss.mo.gov/re/pdf/fsd_mhdmr/1801-family-support-mohealthnet-report.pdf ] …
◊ For the first time since the George W. Bush administration, Missouri issued less than$90 million in food stamps in January (in January 2011 the state issued $129 million in stamps);
◊ Temporary Assistance benefits dropped to a rate below $30 million a year – about 8% of the total block grant, down from $120 million in annual paid benefits just a few years back;
◊ Medicaid costs have increased by $1.2 billion a year from the January 2016 price.
Again in January, the number of citizens on food stamps and Temporary Assistance dropped. Medicaid (aka MO HealthNet) showed an increase of 1,542 people (less than 2/10ths of 1%) on the Enrolled line but the number receiving services dropped by 26,139 (about 2½%) compared to the December 2017 report. I could offer a probable explanation but it would probably be wrong: when the January 2018 report was posted, the November and December reports were removed from the site. It is not uncommon for DSS to quietly issue revised monthly reports. To pull two months from the website means something really got fouled-up.
Now, please remember that people needing benefits no longer have staffed county offices to go to get help. Cases are now handled through processing centers and “customers” must enter the system via the Call Centers – where in January the wait time to get a call answered was almost 24 minutes. (Hey, that was an improvement over December’s 25 minute wait.) I feel that it is very plausible that many Missouri citizens who qualify for benefits simply don’t have the time to spend trying to get help.
Remember, a great many families on food stamps and Medicaid (especially where the kids are covered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program – CHIPs) have working adults. They don’t have an hour to spend during the middle of the day to outlast Call Center gridlock. As I’ve said before, based on census data on poverty, thousands upon thousands more Missourians ought to be getting benefits.
Missouri Benefit Programs January
January 2018 January 2016
Temporary Assistance
Children 20,384 40,805
Parents 6,313 18,109
Total 26,697 58,914
Benefits $2,543,314 $4,956,400
Per Family $222.08 $211.68
Per Day $7.16 $6.83
MO HealthNet
Enrolled 977,531 969,424
Covered 1,051,424 1,131,031
Cost $727,820,810 $627,962,141
Per Person $692.22 $555.21
Managed Care $222.75 $138.61
Food Stamps
Recipients 749,877 838,186
Benefits $89,408,308 $102,390,966
Per Person $119.23 $122.16
Per Meal $1.28 $1.31
https://dss.mo.gov/re/pdf/fsd_mhdmr/1601-family-support-mohealthnet-report.pdf
I wonder how many fewer grocery store employees you have in Missouri when almost $30,000,000 a month doesn’t make it to the cash registers?
Work Requirements
As many of you have been following, the Missouri legislature wants to toughen work requirements for food stamp recipients and begin them for adults on Medicaid.
Tighter work requirements for Temporary Assistance adults took effect in the summer of 2015. How is that going?
Again in January, just one TA parent was enrolled in On The Job Training and just 32 in Education Related To Employment. That’s 33 people out of 1,021 tracked on what experts call the best paths to success.
Unless the state makes major commitments in staff (which they don’t have) and support resources (
which the legislature won’t fund) there is absolutely no reason to believe adding more work requirements will lift any struggling family out of poverty.
Submitted by Glenn Koenen, WCD Member