Verified answer

We are are a well staffed county, our caseloads have only doubled in the last 3 years, and tripled in the last five years. I have about 500 households on my casload at any given time.

Many counties of many states are much worse than that, 25%-50% staffing is common.

And thsoe that are woking are untrained.

Those of us here longer then 10 years were told it woild take 2 years to be a fully trained worker.

In many countiies the average time in service is three years - that's the average. Many have only been working one year.

If there is no one to do the work, the work does not get done.

I worked on a special project to help one of the other counties that was understaffed.

I worked on cases 6 months old - some of the unprocessed application were 12 months old. The people had already reapplied, been approved, and getting benefits, but this application was not used.

I have a college degree, been doing this job description for about 25 years total, two different states, on my caseload are mentally disabled mothers and children, and the total of thier benefits are greatter than my own.

25 year old mentallhy disabled welfare mothers make more money than thier worker with 25 years on the job. TANF. food stamps, free medical, WIC, HUD, energy assistance, it adds up.

Many of my coworkers are on food stamps or medical assistance for children.

I take home less money today than five years ago.

Complain to the governor, that would be the highest level.

Thirty days is noral processing standards, with 60 day and even 90 day allowed depending on circumstances.

It sounds to me like you have no valid complaint - three weeks is not 30 days.

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(Per the SSA reference below - SSI and children - "On average, SSI payments accounted for nearly 48 percent of the family income of SSI children,") For all families with SSI children, SSI is nearly half of ALL income. SSI and children.http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v66n2/v66n2p21.... ~ ~

http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publi...

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Growth in Medicaid mental health spending has ironically resulted in less money for the mental health care safety net.

Medicaid has evolved into one of the most important components of the health care safety net for people with mental disorders. The creation of the Medicaid program in 1965 began a process that fundamentally changed the rules governing the U.S. public mental health care system.

People with mental disorders make up approximately 34 percent (or 1.2 million) of SSI beneficiaries ages 18–64.4 Since the late 1980s the fastest-growing components of SSI enrollment have been people with mental disorders and musculoskeletal impairments.5 Thus, Medicaid is an important payer for care for some of the most impaired people with mental disorders in the United States.

The linking of Medicaid to SSI in 1972 allowed Medicaid to develop a central role in the provision of care to a large segment of severe and persistently mentally ill people. Medicaid introduced an insurance-like mechanism for paying for mental health care to a mental health delivery system dominated by public mental hospitals. Some psychiatric patients had a choice of providers for the first time. Also, the economic calculus for state governments changed with respect to financing of mental health care.http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/22/1/101....

Today’s antipoverty safety net is dramatically different from the one in place two decades ago when welfare reform was enacted. Rather than a safety net primarily dependent on cash assistance programs, as is the common perception, the current system is highly reliant on social service programs funded by government and delivered through community-based nonprofits. Annual public and private expenditures for social service programs today exceed total federal outlays for cash assistance programs like welfare, food stamps, and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).|

https://ed.stanford.edu/events/out-reach-place-pov...