Employment Opportunity

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond control.

-Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Eleanor Roosevelt Center’s Welfare Reform and Human Rights Monitoring Project has spent the past five years studying how the historical Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 has affected welfare recipients in Dutchess County, New York.

Although the past five years have seen a great reduction in caseload, this has not translated to a reduction in poverty. Since the federal poverty level threshold remains unrealistically low ($17,000 for a family of four), we must look at more meaningful measures to determine economic security and well-being for the community’s most vulnerable members.

Over the last five years, ERVK has completed five surveys with the goal to use the experiences of current and former welfare recipients to advocate for changes to ensure access to the benefits for which they are eligible and to address the ubiquitous stigma of being on welfare. The surveys addressed issues of childcare, education and job training, barriers to work, and recipients’ personal experience trying to access services.

Welfare recipients often continue to struggle, even after finding employment, due to the low-wage jobs in which they are often placed. Because of this, it is critical that welfare reform legislation provides the support necessary to maintaining a job long enough to experience real wage growth and other benefits, such as health care.

The Survey findings and resulting recommendations from recipients, state and local agencies will be the subject of a booklet entitled, “Welfare Reform: A Return to Human Rights and Dignity”. Targeted for legislators, agencies, and the community, the booklet will develop a set of principles and recommendations to promote a support system-including employers- where individuals and families can get help that builds on their strengths and aspirations. It assumes that the government must invest in its low-income population, in setting goals and identifying resources that will eventually achieve, and maintain, family self-sufficiency